Case Study: MIXR Social Music Sharing

Rethinking Music Discovery

Crate diggers, gem droppers, and music aficionados alike will search the ends of the earth to collect and share musical gold. Now they can in the palm of their hand.

Role Product Design Lead
Skill User Research ▸ Product Strategy ▸ Interaction Design ▸ Visual Design

THE KEY Insight

More Data
More Problems

Because of the connectedness of the web, music that was once hidden is now searchable. Unfortunately, this wealth of information comes at a price. The time and energy spent in mining a digital universe for scattered musical gems is a critical pain point.

THE PAIN KILLER

Music Discovery powered by Passion

There are few things in nature more socially stimulating than being suggested, messaged, or gifted a magical piece of music that was unknown to you by a respected friend or admired acquaintance.

MIXR provides a solution for the inefficient and infrequent discovery of good music as the first “music trading” app. The focus on symbiotic social interaction (community and sharing) fueling real-time discovery unveils new possibilities for music streaming.

MIXR approaches at the problem of music discovery differently by better connecting collectors of dope music. This driver of difference is powered by the social interaction at the core of the MIXR app found in the Live MIX Sessions.

Execution

The Yin & The Yang

The duality of discovery and community—two of the greatest drivers in social app usage and retention—are focal points that form a continuous gratification loop. On a digital platform, this loop mirrors the physical action of finding new music, sharing that music, and gaining positive feedback from the peers you share it with.

Social nuances and insights uncovered from user interviews and usability testing provide a clear direction for continual fine-tuning of the solution at MIXR’s core.

With findings and user models at the drawing board, lo-fi prototypes were created to quickly test the product’s hypothesis and iterate on results.
Hi-fi prototypes followed, using Invision to simulate the MIXR experience for a deeper dive.

MIXR’s gameplay hinges on the ability for users to easily collect rare music and share these gems by creating and joining live collaborative MIX Sessions.

The ability for users to create a mood, genre, geo or invite-based MIX Session enhances user gameplay with modes of discovery; further supporting engagement by adding a layer of friendly competition, comradery, and urgency.

For every track shared, all members of a given session have the ability to vote for more or less “Spin” (airtime). Inside and outside of a session, users can comment and chat, providing room for further interaction.

The LIVE MIX session Vote: Less Spin

By baking in a sense of showmanship within terminology like “On Air” and “Selects,” a focus on increasing arousal while participating and reviewing MIX Sessions aims to raise prized dopamine levels of MIXR users—intensifying the crave for musical gold.

MIXR Gem Stats in codex view

As a product that balances the consuming yin of a music lover’s passion and the active yang of social behaviors—unlike solitary streaming experiences—MIXR gives users a richer, more vibrant, personalized musicality that taps into the pulse of music scenes. As a byproduct, MIXR has the ability to empower and humanize music communities and industries.

Discovery fueled by the contagious potential of a ‘share’ enables MIXR to chart a new future for the love of music.

Appendix (Bonus Round)

Catering
to Social Animals

By speaking with music fanatics, it is apparent that discovering new music is a social interaction. While many music hunters have formed personal routines and behaviors in order to scour the internet for music, most default to finding good music by word-of-mouth because of immediacy and insightful accuracy.

A competitive analysis of popular streaming apps underlines the successes and faults of today’s music market.

While apps like Spotify and Apple Music have made searching for popular music effortless, discovery and social interactions available to the limitless internet is lost on music aficionados.

Attempts to provide discovery through AI-generated suggestions—including user-informed suggestions such as ‘likes’ vs ‘dislikes’ from Pandora—result in a mediocre performance for most interviewed.

Interestingly, apps like SoundCloud have provided a platform to post, host, and share rare finds; however, the value of its social interaction does not outweigh the cost of time spent sifting through the endless waves of music found in a user’s stream. The more friends you follow, the more music you have to sort through for better or worse.

MIXR is given the foresight to strike a balance between the strengths and weaknesses of its predecessors.

For digital natives in this digital age, music and musicians that have once been hidden are now able to be found by making music social. There is a natural endorphin rush associated with discovering a new sound for the first time and MIXR is made to share it.

Mix it up.