DILEMMA

SoundCloud presented the unique challenge of guiding users through the journey of discovering the music of unknown independent artists that they will enjoy. The application struggles to give users the initial recommendations needed to start them on their music discovery journey.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this project was to enhance the SoundCloud onboarding process. We set the following three project goals to guide the development of a solution:

Conduct exploratory research into the current onboarding processes of art and music sites to discover best practices.
Determine the most effective approach for this project through the collection of user research.
Improve the experience of users via personalized recommendations for music and artists.

MY ROLE

UX Researcher
Interactions Designer
UX Designer

Goals

First, our team established the goals of our project and aligned research methods to achieve those goals.

GOAL 1
Research onboarding processes for art and music sites to discover current best practices.

Measure: Find three different, distinct best practices.

Methods: Live User Interviews, Heuristic Evaluations, Competitive Analysis

GOAL 2
Determine the most effective approach to onboarding for Soundcloud.

Measure: Ask subjects how they would like to do their onboarding process.

Methods: Affinity Diagram, Personas, Storyboards, Expert Reviews, Online Survey

GOAL 3
Improve the user experience with respect to music and artist recommendations.

Measure: Positive feedback received from users on the Mid-Fi prototype compared to the Lo-Fi prototype.

Methods: Affinity Diagram, Lo-Fi Prototype, Mid-Fi Prototype

Methods

Next, we implemented the Methods of our test plan to influence the build of the onboarding Process

Live User Interviews

Purpose: To gather initial exploratory data and insight into user preferences, and how users engage with music streaming services.

Screening Criteria: At least 18 years of age and experience with using a music streaming service within the last six months.

Number of Participants: 8

WHAT WE DISCOVERED

Popular Services Used: People tried a variety of platforms (Most Popular: Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music).
Favorite: Pandora
Popular Platforms: Mobile
What People like: Cost, Simplicity, Recommendations
Why not SoundCloud: Unfamiliarity with the platform, disorganization of the platform, happy with the current platform
What would you like to see with SoundCloud: Social Proof (Sense of Community), Better Organization, More Personalization, Music Suggestions
What do people hate: Ads, Bad Design, Pressure to Pick Songs

Personas

Personas allowed us to empathize with SoundCloud's target user groups. It drove an empathetic design eye towards the solution. We crafted two divergent personas as a result of the data collected from the live interviews.

Storyboards

The storyboards aided our understanding of the circumstances, motivations, and pain points around the onboarding process for users. This visual aid allowed us to see their experiences in totality. Ultimately, this gave us the ability to look through an empathic lens on a deeper level.

Online Survey

Purpose: This method helped us to gather initial user needs, desires, usage habits, and impressions of the current SoundCloud application vs. competitor applications.
Screening Criteria: At least 18 years of age and experience with using a music streaming service within the last six months.

Number of Participants: 42

Recruitment: We recruited participants from a combination of The DePaul CDM University's Participant Pool, volunteers from the HCI 514 class, social media, and a snowball sampling of family and friends who fit the screening criteria.

WHAT WE DISCOVERED

Popular Services Used: Spotify was the top choice and in general, had tried many different services
Top Reasons Why People Loved Spotify: Ease of use, IA that makes sense, Learnability (Invested Labor), Selection & Recommendations, Popularity (Social Proof), Loyalty, Cost
Popular Device: People prefer to use mobile devices for streaming music ( 71.74%)
Why not SoundCloud: Happy as is with their current platform, Artists I like are not on it or I find them elsewhere, Perception of being for smaller unknown artist, No Clear Value Proposition
What would you like to see with SoundCloud: Social Proof (Sense of Community), Better Organization, More personalization, Music Suggestions
Wish Lists of new features on SoundCloud: More of a social aspect (music trivia, connecting with people with similar taste in music, chats, follow the feed of what friends are listening to, Party Mode: Group listening to music, More Customization based on my likes and preferences (evolving playlist: Differentiation between like and simply a listen, create remixes, auto-generate playlist from music in a personal library), Seamless integration across platforms “handoff”, Strong IA: “I can find the music that I am looking for.”

Lo-Fi Prototype

The purpose of the method was to apply all of the insight gathered from the research phase of our project into an effective onboarding process. The Lo-Fi prototype's goal was to test the effectiveness of translating insight into a solution to solve user needs. The Lo-Fi prototype is an opportunity to see if our design meets the user expectations of an effective onboarding process. This method contributed to the design process of our project and revealed more opportunities for improvement.

Mid-Fi Prototype

The purpose of this method was to incorporate the user feedback from the Lo-Fi Prototype into a more robust design concept that can solve user needs. This method's results allowed us to measure our improvement in delivering a solution that addresses user needs.

Participants: 8

Post Test Questions

Q1: Overall, I found this product easy to use.

Q2: I think a feature like this would be useful.

Q3:I would use SoundCloud (or use more often) if I were given recommendations for artists and tracks.

Q4:I would enjoy connecting with people to share music and discover new music.

Overall Impressions Score 1=Extremely — Easy 5=Extremely Difficult
Questions: 1=Strongly Disagree — 5=Strongly Agree

Results

Goal 1 Results
We observed and analyzed the music streaming services: Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Bandcamp, and Soundcloud to understand their unique user experiences. We also researched and analyzed peer-reviewed articles on the subject. Through this process, we were able to identify three best practices. We learned that music streaming services maintain user engagement through design, variety, and customization.

Goal 2 Results
We discovered from our competitors, that their sites did not have a "true" onboarding process. Soundcloud, which allows users more flexibility in the expression of music and connecting to a musical community, lacked an onboarding process to get users engaged with exploring the application. Our team discovered a more user-centric flow through the collection of user research in the form of live exploratory interviews and online surveys. This data provided invaluable user-centric feedback to incorporate into the onboarding process, which will encourage user engagement from the start and improve the customized experience that users desire.

Goal 3 Results

Our final goal was to improve user experience with respect to music and artist recommendations. We incorporated user feedback that we gathered throughout our design process and incorporated this into the Mid-Fi prototype. We then compared the results from our Lo-Fi Prototype to our Mid-Fi prototype to measure the improvement and ability to integrate user feedback into the redesign.

SoundCloud Onboarding