UX Research and UX Design
GoodSesh
A modern, one-of-a-kind songwriting app that lets songwriters do all the thinking and singing while the app does all the documenting.
Based on survey data extracted from 15 songwriters, songwriters use more than 3 tools to support their creative process. Programs and tools like Notes, Voice Memos, chord generators, and rhyming apps are all useful tools to facilitate brainstorming and document the songwriting process. However, these tools aren’t specifically designed to meet songwriters’ unique needs.
GoodSesh is a revolutionary design concept that understands songwriter-specific needs. From documenting lyric iterations to chord-to-lyric assignment, GoodSesh is the tool that’s made for songwriters.
Objective
To design a songwriting app that supports songwriters’ unique creative workflows
Role
UX Researcher, UX Designer
User Research
Understanding Songwriters
I wanted to first gain a comprehensive understanding of how songwriters go about writing songs. This meant understanding the musical instruments they play, noting the specific tools and programs they use to facilitate the songwriting process, recognizing the pain points of their current songwriting process, and gauging their interest in leveraging technology to improve their creative process.
To gather insight, I created and distributed a Qualtrics survey to 15 songwriters who shared their unique songwriting approaches and identified their current pain points in their process. Below is a snapshot of the survey questions:
Survey QuestionsSurvey Analysis
To organize the open-ended insight from the survey, I used Miro to create an affinity mapping workspace. Based on the survey data, I identified recurring themes, grouped comments, and created connections between themes, as pictured below.
Affinity Mapping of Survey DataFrom this affinity mapping, I finally derived three priorities to keep in mind when designing this mobile songwriting app…
Creating a UI that supports songwriters’ ability to document ideas as instantaneously as they arise
Working with and not against songwriters’ iterative and circular nature of their songwriting workflow
Bolstering songwriters’ drive to be resourceful (i.e. letting them choose what tools they can readily access)
Ideation
Ideation Techniques
With three design priorities outlined, it was time for one of my favorite stages of the design process! I wanted to capture as many ideas possible. I first wrote out a handful of How Might We statements to encourage more purposeful ideation. From there, some ideation techniques used were Analogies and Challenging Assumptions.
Below are some of the ideas that were generated!
Quick Access Record - A way to quickly records ideas before they slip away
Tool Side Bar - Accessible songwriting tool bar, inspired by Photoshop
Iterative Edits - All line edits are captured, encouraging lyric iteration
Session Timer - Encourage taking breaks between writing sessions
Share Songs - Easily share work-in-progress (WIP) or final songs with collaborators
AI Chatbot Collaborator - A sounding board for ideas like song themes or word choice
Mindfulness Guides - Interactive guides to help songwriters when frustration strikes
Idea Folder - Dedicated to saving ideas to be fleshed out later
But Is This Too Much Ideation?
While it was fun coming up with as many ideas and features as I could, I realized that I’d reached a point where I found myself stuck in the ideation stage. The more I focused on generating new ideas, the longer I would be delaying my project timeline!
I needed to redirect my attention towards moving forward through the design process. At this time, I had a networking call with a UX designer, and our conversation inspired me to take the following redirection. I decided to reevaluate my design priorities by outlining an MVP, or minimum viable product.
MVP of GoodSesh
Referencing the data and analyses from the Qualtrics survey, I came up with three minimum functionalities this app must have in order to truly facilitate the songwriting process for songwriters.
Quickly record melodic ideas: Incorporating this functionality aims to remove as much frustration from the logistical parts of the songwriting process so that songwriters can solely focus on the creative process.
Add lyric iterations: I want songwriters to feel confident about building out their ideas and fleshing them out into the quality they want to achieve. It’s important that this songwriting app includes some type of editing feature where users can add a lyric idea without overriding previous ideas.
Work with, not restrict songwriters’ creative workflow: This may be the most important feature. Many songwriters from the survey emphasized how variable their songwriting process is. Sometimes lyrics come first, other times the chords come first. Or lyrics and chords come together simultaneously! Whatever the case, this app should not act as a barrier to how songwriters start their process. Regardless if they think of the lyrics, chords, song title, song, concept, or something else comes first, GoodSesh should support the songwriter’s unique workflow.
Design
Bringing the User Flow to Life
Of the three requirements for creating the MVP of GoodSesh, the hardest one to conceptualize and design for was the user flow for adding lyric iterations. To be able to design a seamless experience for adding lyric iterations, it was important to break down songwriters’ natural decision-making and navigation process for when they’d produce alternate line ideas in their current songwriting sessions.
Below is a visualization of the user flow for adding lyric iterations:
Early Sketches for Adding Lyric Iterations
Based on the user flow above, there were some important features I realized I had to be mindful of while I was sketching out preliminary designs, such as the ability to write down the alternate lyric ideas, easily switch between lyric ideas, and continue songwriting without much disruption after considering different ideas.
Below are some rough sketches with my thoughts behind my design decisions:
As pictured, within each line, the user could type in their alternate lyric idea. Then, the user could see all the alternate line ideas and select which lyric they’d specifically want to be displayed on their song draft.
Early on, I thought it was helpful to divide each line its own “workspace” where you could edit the lyrics and chords for each line.
I was trying to prioritize maintaining a minimal interface as I wanted the UI to be easy for the songwriter to quickly jot down ideas as they arise.
Now, We Up the Fidelity
My early sketches played great design references for when I started creating mid-fidelity wireframes on Figma. It was important to design just enough functionalities for this set of wireframes as these would be used for testing.
Below are the mid-fidelity wireframes for the user flow for adding lyric iterations:
