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UpBeat

PROJECT OVERVIEW

UpBeat is an iOS app created at the Capitol Records Capitol360 Music Hackathon in December, 2018 that helps users discover budding local artists similar to their personal music tastes on Spotify. It is difficult to discover relatively unpopular artists on Spotify who have small numbers of listens and songs. These artists show up at the bottom of searches and are rarely featured on popular Spotify playlists. In addition to facing difficulty gaining fans, new artists can also struggle with identifying their space within the music community and understanding how fans interpret their music. UpBeat aims to remedy both of these struggles by creating a platform for local artists to connect with local music lovers.

TECHNOLOGIES USED

Swift, Balsamiq

TEAM

Alexina Boudreaux - UX Designer, Connor Duffy - Software Engineer, Will Durkee - Software Engineer, Miranda Mann - UI Designer

DESIGN & WIREFRAMES

As the UX Designer within this hackathon team, my role was to come up with the flow and design of UpBeat. When an artist creates an account on UpBeat, they input their genre, a 30 second clip of their best song, three well-known artists they think they sound like, their location, and links to platforms where users can further discover their music such as SoundCloud. When a user creates an account, they login with their Spotify account and set their home location. Using the Spotify API, UpBeat extracts the user’s favorite genre and well-known artists on Spotify. From this information, UpBeat displays local artists that match the user’s preferred genre and well-known artists. A user may listen to an artist’s 30 second clip and then either endorse an artist’s genre and similar well-known artists or suggest a genre and well-known artist that they think is a closer match to the artist’s sound. If a user likes the artist and wants to hear more of their songs, they have the option to go to the artist’s linked platforms and explore more of the artist’s content. Through this process, users are able to discover local artists that match their music taste that would be difficult to discover on Spotify, and developing artists are able to connect with fans and learn more about how their music is perceived. These wireframes were created using Balsamiq.