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A Designer’s Guide to Music Products (ft. ĦN)
 (o)HD/HQ premiere [OFFICIAL] HANNAH DONOVAN 4 SEP, 2014

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I’m a product designer, and I work in music. I love making things that create culture and nurture self-expression. Hello, I’m

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Photo credit: Kerstin Joensson

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WARNING MUSIC IS HARD

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•It’s a crowded space, competition is tough •Rightfully so, many investors are wary of it •There are a lot of constraints, and they’re not your users’ problem •There are also a lot grey areas… •“mobilus in mobile”

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WHAT DO I WISH I’D KNOWN WHEN I STARTED DESIGNING MUSIC PRODUCTS?

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1. TOOLS Your design toolkit for music & how to use it 2. STRUCTURE Designing information 3. CONTEXT Music is situational 4. LOOK & FEEL Music is pop culture 5. INTERACTIONS The triad of listen, share & discover

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1. TOOLS

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PRESENTATION EDITORIAL

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PRESENTATION EDITORIAL AUDIO/VIDEO DATA

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PRESENTATION EDITORIAL AUDIO/VIDEO DATA

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PRESENTATION EDITORIAL AUDIO/VIDEO DATA

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PRESENTATION EDITORIAL AUDIO/VIDEO DATA

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PRESENTATION EDITORIAL AUDIO/VIDEO DATA

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PRESENTATION EDITORIAL AUDIO/VIDEO DATA 2012

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PRESENTATION EDITORIAL AUDIO/VIDEO DATA 2012 2013

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PRESENTATION EDITORIAL AUDIO/VIDEO DATA 2012 2013 2014

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There is no “one vs. the other” There is “both”. ! Good design is about having as many tools in your toolkit as possible, and using them appropriately.

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There is no “one vs. the other” There is “both”. ! Good design is about having as many tools in your toolkit as possible, and using them appropriately. PRESENTATION EDITORIAL AUDIO/VIDEO DATA

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Design knowledge: how to source and present the way music looks music looks, what the trends are. ! Legal knowledge: how to source audio/video ! Editorial knowledge: how is music journalism created? What’s the formula behind radio playlists? ! Technical knowledge: what APIs/data are available

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THESE FOUR AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE ARE YOUR DESIGN TOOLKIT

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AREA RIPE FOR EXPERIMENTATION + AREA OF A LOT OF DIALOGUE = AREA OF MANY CONSTRAINTS Here’s the stuff you can get, and here’s the format you can get it in, you can include these bits. •What parameters can have? •How expensive is it to get this data? •What can we reasonably compare this data to? •No? Let me show you what I’m thinking… TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE

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Han

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What do you want? Why do you want it? FIRST ASK This is ‘the brief’ (questions you ask together with your client, users, colleagues) – whether you’re working for yourself or someone else.

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What do you want? Why do you want it? FIRST ASK This is ‘the brief’ (questions you ask together with your client, users, colleagues) – whether you’re working for yourself or someone else. How to do it? THEN DECIDE This is for you and your colleagues to choose. This is not for your users or clients to decide.

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What do you want? Why do you want it? FIRST ASK

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INVESTIGATING (WHAT, WHY) PRODUCING (HOW) Turning the ‘creative corner’

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AND THEN OF COURSE, TRY IT OUT, FAIL FAST, AND DO IT AGAIN. Not all products are hits.

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IS LEARNING TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS AT THE RIGHT TIME. 50% OF MAKING

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2. STRUCTURE !"

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Credit: Alvaro Carreras, Rovane Durso, James Cipriano – Dribbble

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MUSIC IS MESSY

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LET YOUR USERS USE AND ABUSE WHAT YOU MAKE. Photo credit: Nimrod Kamer

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LET YOUR USERS USE AND ABUSE WHAT YOU MAKE. Photo credit: Nimrod Kamer

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LET YOUR USERS USE AND ABUSE WHAT YOU MAKE. Photo credit: Nimrod Kamer

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THE SONG YOU LOVE SONG SHARING ON THIS IS MY JAM

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Every song is carefully hand-picked, creating a network effect of a small catalog of only the best songs. Focus is on cutting through all the choice in music today.

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2M JAMS .5M SONGS » .5M NEW
 SCREENS = = RICH NEW INTERACTIONS, CONTENT & DISCOVERY

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3.CONTEXT

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Is largely fragmented, contextless and ephemeral. SHARING SONGS

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Is largely fragmented, contextless and ephemeral. SHARING SONGS

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ENCOURAGING CONTEXT To encourage people to create jams that were more beautiful and personal, we made a choice to add more friction to the posting process (number of jams posted stayed even) 28% 34% 40% 46% 52% Oct 2012 Nov Dec Jan 2013 Feb Mar Apr May Jams with written descriptions

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Hype Machine Stack The Fader Daily Stones Throw newsletter

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LISTENING TO SONGS Takes 3.5 mins, requires headphones or speakers and frame of mind

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Recent Stations Your Personal Stations Popular Stations Tag Stations Your Personal Stations [Name] Radio [Name] Radio [Name] Radio Last.fm Kinect Library Radio Mix Radio Recommended Radio Popular Stations Artist Radio Last.fm Kinect Tag Stations Tag Radio Last.fm Kinect Artist Radio Artist Radio Tag Radio Tag Radio Artist Radio Artist Radio Artist Radio Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist Artist icon icon ico Xbox Kinect Navigation Selecting stations Controls: User selects a tile by “holding” their hand States: Personal stations will be empty (and need a help screen) until the user has listened to x tracks; pull recent stations from user’s LFM history. e starts equires lay icon ting these a “folder” not have a play icon)

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upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/IPhone_5.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/IPhone_5.png IN THE RIGHT CONTEXT, GREAT MUSIC PRODUCTS DON’T EVEN NEED MUSIC.

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4. LOOK & FEEL A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense. – Bruno Munari #$✒️

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INDUSTRY/DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE IS A MUST.

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DIGITAL MUSIC IS ONLY AS VISUAL AS YOU CHOOSE TO MAKE IT.

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VISUAL ALCHEMY The ingredients we had (for the most part) were dodgy metadata and terrible quality thumbnails.

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5. INTERACTIONS Listening / Discovering / Socializing '()*

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Every user interview I’ve done confirms the best music recommendations come from friends. ! Usually people have (or had) between 
 1 – 5 people who share music with them.

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DISCOVERY IS WORK While working on the Last.fm iPhone app in 2010, we also re-branded the radio stations, including adding a new one – My Mix Radio, a mix of your existing favs + new stuff

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In a London pub Photo credit: David Emery on flickr

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In a London pub Matt was tired of coming home from the pub with long lists of “bands to check out” after badgering friends for tips. So he started asking this instead: “What one song I should listen to when I get home?” Two things happened…

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In a London pub 1. The quality of music recommendations went way up 2.The quality of the pub conversation went up too

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Reactions: better music, better conversation. Chris Thorpe @jaggeree
 @ThisIsMyJam is closest thing I've felt for a while to the John Peel show I remember from youth. You may not like all but discovery is key. 27 Jan 12

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TO WRAP UP ! Music is hard, and you should be intimately familiar with the domain/industry to do it well ! Use the best tool for the job, regardless of trends. Use the what/why brief and then decide how ! Music is messy, plan for and embrace the chaos from an information design perspective !

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Music requires the right context and constraints to be enjoyed; The design of social music ≠ social networking Music represents pop culture and thrives on visual language; digital music is only as visual as you choose to make it Design from day one for the interlinked triad of music interactions – listening, discovering and socalizing

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MUSIC PRODUCTS HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO AMPLIFY & CREATE MUSIC CULTURE, NOT JUST CHANGE BEHAVIOR.⚡️

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FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER @han GE T IN TOUCH han@hannahdonovan.com TH ANKS!