Research Plan

Before starting Phase 1 I had to draft a research plan so I could have an idea of where to start from for my research.

The first questions that came to my mind were these:

• Does this feature already exist?
• How would users welcome it?
• Would they find it useful?

Competitive + Swot Analysis

So I did a Competitive Analysis and Swot Analysis by targeting five main competitors of Tidal.

Here’s a few key points from the results:

• Spotify is controlling the market thanks to its “freemium” model, the biggest music selection and the variety of features they offer.
• Soundcloud is rising because they offer a lot of exposure to up-and-coming artists as well as a free subscription.
• Apple Music is strong on exclusives and integration with the user’s own music library.
• Apps like Lisn, Vertigo and Liyo rely on other providers like Spotify and Soundcloud and are third-party apps.

None of the above offer a live streaming feature that Tidal is looking to implement with the introduction of TurnUp.

Personas

Once I gathered insights on our competitors I created some provisional personas to understand some of the traits of the potential user and to find out if the feature is something that users would actually use.

User Surveys

With the help of the personas I started drafting some questions for the user surveys. The questions were specific to find out more about listening habits and music sharing. Here we see a few key questions and the data gathered from the answers:

Research Findings

From my research findings, TurnUp is a feature could potentially remove the lack of social interaction that music streaming services usually have. Artists, music lovers and people who work in the music industry, can engage with each other and share opinions and feedback on songs and new releases. The new feature will have two main purposes:

• Host a streaming session
• Participate in a streaming session

App Architecture

Once I defined all the requirements for the implementation, I created an application map, which helped me focusing on the key design screens and overall architecture of the feature.

User Flows

User flows are very useful when it comes to focusing on a specific task the user needs to complete when using the features we built. In this case I created a user flow for the “Create a stream” feature for users that want to host streaming sessions and “Join a stream” feature for guest users that just want to listen and discover new songs and artists.

Sketches + Wireframes

Working on top of an existing design made me realize that there was a big opportunity to save time. At this point I already knew what features I had to implement so I started creating some annotated rough sketches of the key screens.

High Fidelity Mockups

To keep everything as consistent as possible, all the screens I created use styles and guidelines from the already existing Tidal app.

Prototype

After completing the high fidelity wireframes, I created a prototype and started the user testing. Some of the testings were taken in person where I had a better understanding of what the user was thinking and feeling as I asked them to share their thoughts with me. Some testings were taken remotely via Skype and Marvel app.

TRY THE PROTOTYPE

If I had more time to work on this project I would’ve focused on improving the “upvote song” feature as well as getting more rounds of feedback from users.

A video live streaming feature already used by services like Periscope, Snapchat and others is also worth exploring in the future.

Tidal should also consider implementing a “freemium” model like Spotify, a good way to monetize this could be exploring collaborations with music businesses that would be willing to pay to advertise on the platform so ads would be relevant and useful to users.