Gigfinder is a location-based event-finding app. Its core aim is to allow the easy discovery of local music events and new artists. The app uses map-based interactions and filters allowing users to quickly search for events both locally and further afield.
First, from each individual's search preferences, a personalised and unique playlist is curated. Secondly, the events recommended to the user within their specified location parameters are placed at the top of each playlist.
Simply, with Gigfinder, all you have to do is sit back, listen to your personalised playlist, and find your next recommended gig.
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Over the course of my research on this project, I conducted a case study on the 3 biggest music streaming services; Spotify, Apple Music, and SoundCloud, to see how each facilitated the discovery of new music.
I then surveyed over 160 people about how they perceive music streaming platforms and how they discover new music.
Finally, I conducted 2 sets of interviews, first interviewing 2 musicians about how they engage with their fans and how people discover their music. Then interviewing 2 people who regularly use music streaming platforms with different tastes in music and levels of gig attendance.
I first created wireframes for the core map-based filter that lets users see what events are nearby. I then focused on the journey the user would take from here to the playlist page where they would be able to continue their journey to buying tickets or viewing events.
Moving on from my wireframes I began building the prototype. The major journeys that I decided to focus on were the discovery process for new music, a feature allowing users to see past events, and a browse by venue option.
After testing the first prototype a series of changes were made based on the results. The feature to view past events was removed and the new iteration focused more on the home feed offering quick navigation around the app. The map section was refined to allow filtering of content by date, genre, and venue preferences. Finally, the playlist section was overhauled to act more like a traditional music player putting the emphasis on listening to new music rather than just browsing events.
The Home feed allows users to quickly navigate the site as well as see featured and curated content specifically targeted at each user.
The Map section of the app will allow users to define search parameters such as distance, genres and price to find a gig that suits them.
The Discover section will create a playlist allowing users to listen to all the events which fall within the parameters selected by them in the Map section before.
The Event page will show specific event details such as time, price, and location, as well as allow the purchasing of tickets directly through the app.
The end result was a prototype that showed a week of events across Dundee. The prototype allowed users to take any path they desired to find an event with the 3 main journeys through the app functioning and allowing people to get a real feel for what the finished product could be.
At the start of this project, I re-examined my design process with a focus on how to achieve effective research. I wanted the topic of that research to be something I had a deep interest in that would then allow the product to grow out of it. The question I settled on was how do people discover new music?
Reflecting on the aims from the start of the project I feel that I have managed to in some way facilitate all 3. Each point has sent me down a different path that was invaluable to my overall design process and helped in illuminating some very interesting and thought-provoking ideas.
If I was to do anything differently this time around I would have liked to include more people in the interview process as the insights gathered from those sessions were so valuable when coming up with my later design.