Right Song, Right Now is our attempt to address the age old problem of knowing what you want to listen to but also not really knowing or having a hard time putting a song to the idea you have in your head.
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Throughout multiple points of our project this semester, we heard from music listeners and domain experts alike that the current process of finding the right song to listen to right now is rife with potential for redesign. From these conversations we scoped out the opportunity area.
“it’s now possible to get your hands on any piece of music, pretty much for free because of the internet. You can follow your wants or needs, or your interests to anything” - Jill Lehman
“When you’re already connected to something, then you want other ways of deepening that connection. This is what we do as humans.” - Paul Pangaro
“I’m not likely to take recommendations from algorithms” - KT
"I find my songs on the radio" - KM
Some of our initial probes into the space of discovery looked at creating a more tangible music recommendation algorithm for users to have more nuanced control over music discovery and curation experience.
This initial probe looked at providing users with an understanding of why music is being recommended to them.
We realized that understanding why increases user satisfaction with said recommendations.
There needs to be an elegant way for users and music streaming platforms to better understand each other.
Another probe looked at providing direct methods for users to co-create their playlist recommendations with their algorithm.
We learned that users clearly relate to the idea of higher levels of collaboration.
We also learned that making transparency and the actionability of the previous two prototypes accessible on different levels of the platform (overall on the home, playlist, song by song) resulted in different usages.
Interviewees said that actionability in a playlist view felt like they could explore new music without affecting overall recommendations.
Our last prototype focused on creating paths into cultural and personal music pasts for users.
Interviewees found the concept easy to understand and relevant to both rediscovery of past favourites and discovery of new music from past eras
This concept validation means that time should be an metric for both transparency and actionability.
The main outcome of our prototype exploration was the discovery of 4 aspects of the opportunity area that really excites us.
Designing for user understanding, designing to better align user mental models with actuality in order to promote higher satisfaction.
Taking on the task of creation more moments of collaboration between people and machines when appropriate.
This opportunity area provides the chance to make an impact on all levels of a music streaming platform.
rediscovery metric
Taking a fresh look as time as a metric to help music listeners better navigate new and past music options.
We see this opportunity as flexible and as sitting well with context awareness (a huge future tech area). However, we also see that our learnings from user research reveal elements of design that work with various other problems. Perhaps, ideas from Right Song, Right Now has the chance to become the foundation for other areas, rather than our team's main focus.