DESCIPLINE
Product Redesign, User Research, UX/UI Design, User Flow, Usability Testing, Interaction Design
ROLE
Product Designer
FOR
Apple Music
TEAM
Solo
TIME
May 2023
TOOLS
Figma, FigJam, Zoom
Summary
The business goal of Apple Music is to make it more than just a utility. However, the app's limited opportunities for user interaction often result in many users utilizing it as a simple music player.
Redesigned 4 existing UX Patterns and 2 new user flows, aligning with Apple Design Principles.
1 New Feature
6 Interactive Prototypes
50+ Hi-Fi Screens
What is Apple Music?
Apple Music is a music streaming service that provides users access to a vast library of songs, playlists, and radio stations. It is seamlessly integrated with Apple's ecosystem and offers exclusive content and personalized recommendations, making it a unique and comprehensive music experience for users.
Why Redesign Social Feature?
Only 10% iPhone users subscribe to Apple Music.
Apple's mission: "To bringing the best user experience to customers through innovative hardware, software, and services."
Functional needs
Emotional needs
Social needs
UX Research
Current Social Features
I began the research with a question: 'How does Apple Music currently incorporate social features and offer opportunities for users to connect?".
Ability to view personal profile, shared playlist and following users.
Ability to share musics on 3rd-party platform, Instagram, Messages, etc.
SharePlay enables simultaneous music playback among multiple users.
UX Research
User Interviews
To explore opportunities for improving Apple Music's social features, I conducted four online meetings with 21-24-year-old iPhone users who regularly subscribe and use the app, gathering both quantitative and qualitative data on user behavior and perceptions.
Only 1 person knows about the "Personal Profile" feature, with most users unaware of it.
Most users rarely visit a friend's profile or listen to their playlists, almost none at all.
All of the users are enthusiastic about increasing their social interactions through music with their friends.
Users infrequently share lyrics or songs with friends, as they find the sharing feature unintuitive. They also hardly use "SharePlay."
"While I've always believed that music is a powerful way to connect with others, I've never had the opportunity to discover my friends' taste in music."
UX Research
UX Audits
After interviewing Apple Music users, I found that most are not using the available interaction features and find them unintuitive. To address this, I conducted a UX audit and identified 4 issues that may be contributing to the problem.
Ideation
Jobs to Be Done
To build empathy and understand user's motivations and expectations on the social features, I analyzed Jobs to be Done before jumping into design.
Activities such as user journeys and value propositions may not be feasible for this project, and personas are often impractical and lack substance.
Ideation
Crazy Eights
Having gained an understanding of users' needs and behaviors in diverse scenarios, I employed the Crazy Eight strategy to generate potential solutions, and then utilized a Prioritization Matrix to evaluate and prioritize the potential impact of each solution.
Ideation
Information Architecture
Before jumping into the details of each screen, information architecture is rearranged to best guide the design of each feature.
Before
After
Ideation
Sketches & User Flow
Using the ideas from Crazy Eights as a reference, I began to out each flow and sketching to visualize my designs.
Design
40+ Low-Fi Prototype
Design
IOS Design System
I spent some time auditing the IOS 16 Design System to make sure my designs align with Apple Design Principle.
