Driving Millennial Engagement with The Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is one of the city’s institutional powerhouses. Despite its cultural significance, the BSO is concerned with maintaining its success into the future by engaging with a largely untapped millennial audience.
To address this, my team and I designed:
1. A personalized feature that encourages guided active listening and exploration of Classical Music.
2. A customizable Classical Music playlist creator.
My Role
I focused on the user research and interface design phases of this project, playing a prominent role in Research Synthesis, Concept Ideation, and Interface Design.
Research
Drafted questions for user interviews
Conducted three of eight total user interviews
Executed two competitive analyses
Established key takeaways through Affinity Mapping
Created our Proto-Persona
Identified our problem and solution
Design
Participated in two design studios
Drafted our paper prototype
Built out user interfaces and designed splash page
Executed low to high fidelity prototypes
Facilitated two of five total rounds of usability testing
Iterated interfaces in response to user feedback
The Problem
Our problem was two-fold.
User Problem: Millennials needed a way to explore and learn more about the Classical Music genre because they weren’t sure how to appreciate the genre and didn’t know where to learn more about it.
Business Problem: The BSO needed to a way to promote Classical Music to the millennial audience to reach a new market segment, to increase ticket sales, and to ensure its success into the future.
The design needed to bridge this gap.
Even if the BSO made their performances free, it wouldn’t mean millennials would attend them.
To facilitate the BSO’s goals, we designed a feature that targeted millennials to help them cultivate an appreciation of the Classical Music genre and to recommend upcoming shows based on their musical preferences.
The Solution
Our final prototype included:
Recommended playlists tailored to users’ activities and moods
Musical data from popular music streaming apps
Curated pieces that reflect our users’ personal musical tastes,
A “guided tour” that educates users about a specific piece while they’re listening to it and updates with contextual information as a song progresses.
Flow 1: Classical Music Discovery
The Classical Music “Discover” feature allows users to explore classical music that is recommended to their personal music tastes, either by creating their own profile and selecting musical attributes or by syncing their Spotify account.
Flow 2: Playlist Creator
The Classical Music Playlist creator allows users to input their current activity and select up to three “moods” to build a personalized playlist reflective of how the user is feeling and what the user is doing.
Research & Design Process
Research
User Interviews
We screened 18 potential participants to gauge their knowledge and consumption habits of classical music and selected eight participants to interview.
Interview questions covered a wide range in topics, including: Current Music Listening Behaviors, Affinities for Classical Music, Concert-Going Behaviors, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its mobile app.
We then built an Affinity Map to draw key takeaways.
Competitive Analysis
We analyzed 17 features of the BSO app in comparison to mobile apps from The New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and The Berlin Symphony Orchestra to understand the strengths and weaknesses of our product and the products of our competition.
While all of the apps displayed upcoming concert information, we discovered that few apps gave users helpful information about the Classical Music genre, itself.
“I’m not engaged with the genre anymore… It’s just not relevant,”
— Research Participant
Affinity Mapping
After concluding our interviews, we transcribed specific points onto sticky notes and created an Affinity Map to better showcase trends, themes, and areas of opportunity.
Key Takeaways
Our users value convenience, personalization, and freedom of choice in their music consumption.
Classical music as a genre is misunderstood, but not from lack of interest.
Classical Music is pigeonholed into a few specific listening situations.
Our users utilize streaming services like Spotify to access music.
Social influence has the power to greatly shape the entertainment choices of our users.
Proto-Persona
Design
Design Studios
After identifying our user problem and solution, my team and I brainstormed the concept of our design by conducting two rounds of Design Studio, wherein we sketched out ideas and pitched our best ones. The Design Studio process created our initial wireframes, essential features, and user flows. The process also allowed our team to collaboratively establish our concept’s visual design.
Paper Prototyping
We then developed and tested a paper prototype on six users clued us into what was and wasn’t working in our design:
Users expected to see a playlist overview showing a list of songs upon interaction.
Users wanted the guided listening feature to be more prominently displayed and to update with new “listening-points” as a song progressed.
Users wanted to save songs and playlists to their profile for quick access in the future.
Every user skipped the “Add Photo” option within Profile Creation.
Wireframing
We took these user insights into account and began to develop digital wireframes of our concept.
I designed the initial wireframes for the “Playlist Creator” feature.
Digital Prototyping & Usability Testing
Users wanted more breathing room on the song information page.
Users did not read the instructional text because it was long-winded and overly formal.
Users felt that the Splash Page was uninviting.
Users were confused by the “shuffle” button on the playlist page.
Users couldn’t figure out how to leave the song detail page other than viewing upcoming concerts.
Design Iterations
V1
Users felt that the Splash Page was uninviting and did not encourage further exploration of the product.
V2
I redesigned the Splash Page to feature an image of the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing and a more welcoming and informative text greeting.
V1
Users felt that the Song Information Page was too tightly packed with information and that the design needed more room to breathe. Users also struggled to exit the page and navigate to other pages within the product.
V2
We redesigned the Song Information Page to give it more breathing room by creating collapsable sections and by increasing the font size. We also changed the page’s Top Bar feature by replacing the “Like” button with a clearer way to exit the page.
V1
Users were confused by the “Shuffle” button on the Playlist Overview Screen and struggled to understand the musical attributes given to one playlist relative to the musical attributes of another.
V2
We redesigned the Playlist Overview screen by eliminating the “Shuffle Button” and by providing users with clearer feedback by restating the user’s inputted Activity and Moods.
Conclusion
Next Steps
First and foremost, conducting more usability testing.
Allowing for more customization within the user’s profile page, such as the ability to create personalized playlists.
Incorporating other streaming services, like Apple Music, to sync listening data and establish personalized musical preferences.
Giving users a clearer idea of how long a playlist is before selecting it.
Personal Takeaways
Through this project, I learned the importance of unrestrained ideation in response to user research, and how to simplify these ideas to produce a viable Minimal Desirable Product. I also learned that there can be a difference between a business’ problem and its users’ problem and that good design can act as a bridge between the two, solving the users’ problem to facilitate the solving of a business problem.
Concept
Mobile App Design
Team of Three
Conceptual Project
Tools
Sketch
Invision
Pen & Ink
Duration
Two Week Sprint