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All That Jazz

Role: UX Designer

An App that helps Jazz lovers enjoy the learning journey as much as they enjoy the music. 

Duration: 4 Months

Tool: Figma

Problem

Jazz is hard. Students have often shared that they have difficulties memorizing technical skills and there is no systematic way of learning online. So how to smooth out their learning journey?

Study shows

There are 5 negative factors that's been affecting learning Jazz negatively:

  1. Lack of time and energy

  2. Self-limiting beliefs (I am not talented/ I don’t need to be that good/ I am too old for this.)  

  3. Lack of support from teachers

  4. Cost of learning is too high

  5. Less interests in Jazz in the society 

They are quite relatable. As an adult, I barely have any time to practice and money to spend on my hobby after working full time hours, finishing all chores, and getting drunk at social events. 

 

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I dug deeper and did interviews ... 

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The findings were interesting. I then analyzed the interview notes using Affinity map and Empathy map. 

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Affinity Map.png

And I found 2 pain points: â€‹

  1. Inability to learn systematically: Learning systematically is important. Online resources are scattered away on different platforms. Users often spend too much time looking for accurate free information. It is time consuming and most students lose patience during the process which will result in giving up. 

  2. Lack of support from the community: Community is necessary. Jazz is an improvised collaboration among different musicians, but it is difficult to find musicians that play different instruments to practice with, which limits and slows down the improvement. Professional musicians also need a community so they can inspire each other. There hasn’t been any popular social platform for Jazz musicians to exchange ideas and connect.

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So as a UX designer, these are the problems waiting to be solved. In other words, 

  • How might we help users learn Jazz music theory in a systematic way? 

  • How might we help users to stay motivated during their learning journey? 

  • How might we increase connections among users in the Jazz industry?

I made 2 Personas to help me understand user needs

I then started sketching and made them into wireframes and later on made them into Hi-Fi mockups. 

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Later, I ran a guerrilla usability test of the prototype by asking five potential users to complete three simple tasks: 1) find Cmaj7 on the chord chart, 2) find the sheet music of “Autumn leaves”, 3) find a nearby event for tonight. And the result is surprising:

  • None of the participants could find the “event” page to complete the task. 

  • The background on the homepage needs to be more dynamic.

  • The “browsing history” icon is confusing.

Here's my reiteration

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Demo screen

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Link to my prototype: https://www.figma.com/proto/PkxY651w9m9R3611zKxntS/Hi-Fi-Reiteration-Prototype?page-id=0%3A1&node-id=1%3A59&starting-point-node-id=1%3A59 

Reflection

 Jazz is a great form of art to express our feelings but the learning journey can be painful. Students need to learn in a systematic way and also have a community to share their learning journey. By designing “All that Jazz” , I created a solution to the problem which combined systematic learning and community within one product. Users will be able to improve the experience of their learning journey.

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