This case study details the process behind Musique, an application meant to streamline the online instrument rental and pick-up process. The project involved user research and UX design.
Date
Nov - Dec 2022
Role
UX Designer
Company
CMU Interaction Design Studio
Problem
51% of adults believe they are too old to pick up an instrument now.
2022 Yamaha Music Survey
In a Gallup Poll from 2003, 85% of Americans expressed regret over not learning to play an instrument, and 67% still wanted to learn. However, adults often feel deterred by age, time constraints, and the effort required to visit physical stores for consultations and rentals.
Musique is a store targeted towards adults, and is interested in expanding its reach by establishing an online presence. Our team had the following constraints:
Solution must identify and address the concerns of three stakeholders: customer, service provider, owner
Solution must span across multiple screens (i.e. phone, tablet, desktop)
Challenge
NAMM Foundation reports that people are up to 45% more likely to maintain a new hobby after they've made a financial commitment. Our solution aimed to create a smooth and welcoming online experience, making purchases feel less intimidating.
How might we improve a customer’s online rental experience in order to increase the likelihood of a purchase?
Solution
A professional interface welcomes a more mature audience
Musique differentiates itself from other rental sites by offering an elegant UI. The professional layout appeals to an adult audience, while also avoiding the overly corporate feel of competitor sites. Musique offers audio samples and the ability to compare instruments, facilitating the instrument search for users.
Meet Jolene
A 22 year old college student interested in trying out the cello for the first time, but felt out-of-place browsing the main stream rental sites.
Manage in-person and virtual inventory on-the-go
Employees at Musique now use tablets to manage inventory and customer inquiries. Scanning instrument QR codes allows for quick updates, reducing reliance on desktop systems and improving in-store efficiency.
It's Mark
He’s working at Musique, and he can get pretty overwhelmed keeping track of online rentals when the store gets busy.
Streamlined, customizable analytics for business growth.
The dashboard enables Musique’s owner to customize and analyze data, with views for inventory, website performance, and employee activity, helping to meet evolving business needs.
Introducing Andrew
Here’s the owner of Musique. His main priority is expanding the business online, which means he has to make sense of all the data coming in.
Research
With only two days to conduct and analyze research, we focused on gathering impactful insights within a limited timeframe. This approach set the stage for developing a user-centric solution to a better online rental experience. Given the tight timeframe, we mainly prioritized the Customer stakeholder.
User Interviews & Personas
Our research began with user interviews targeting students who were looking to pick up a new instrument. We also gathered insights on service provider and business owner needs through online forums like Reddit and Quora.
We created personas to better understand our stakeholders’ goals, pain points, and opportunity areas
Competitive Analysis
Our competitive analysis of other rental sites identified common issues, such as a lack of detailed instrument information and an unintuitive interface. We also noted that many sites explicitly targeted younger customers, overlooking the adult demographic.
User Journey Map
We created a user journey map to better understand current frustrations and to identify design opportunities.
Design Opportunities
Create a more elegant and mature interface
Add audio samples, photos, and reviews for each instrument to keep information consolidated in one area
Implement a comparison feature to decrease clutter for the user
Design
To validate our feature ideas, we brainstormed 20 scenarios and selected the most promising 5 to develop into storyboards and sketches
Our design approach emphasized sophistication and elegance, drawing inspiration from symphonies and classical concerts, which we conveyed through a dark, velvety color scheme and striking instrument photography.
We conducted user testing with our initial iterations and found a few notable reactions.
User Testing Findings
Feedback revealed that new instrument players knew their preferred instrument family but were unfamiliar with specific instrument models
Users reported feeling overwhelmed when presented with too much information in a block
Filtering by instrument
We simplified the instrument screen by filtering based on type, rather than rental or purchase mode, to reduce cognitive load.
Instant feedback on availability
Information density
Overlap can cause frustration
Cleaner visual layout
Jakob's Law
More clicks
Emphasizing visual hierarchy
We found that service providers care most about the status and location of rentals. In the new iteration, we moved information around to ensure the visual hierarchy of the page aligned with those needs.
OLD VIEW
NEW VIEW
Keeping the design consistent
We also streamlined the business owner’s view, removing redundant information and aligning it more closely with the design of the tablet and mobile interfaces for a seamless, user-friendly experience. We made the following key changes:
Minimized and repositioned the search bar to the right for clearer functionality.
Created an "additional information" button
Removed redundant inventory details from the instrument panel.
Standardized the style of instrument photos and labels for visual consistency.
Introduced quick-filter options within columns to enhance navigation
Reflections
Maintain focus on user flow
Our team encountered scope creep, leading to a retroactive redefinition of the user flow. Going forward, i’ve learned to establish a unified understanding of the user journey before moving to prototyping.
Appreciate simplicity
Overloading a page with information can create clutter. Practicing concise language and thoughtful design conveys confidence and clarity to users.
Consistency goes a long way
I learned that establishing a style guide early is invaluable, as we wasted a lot of time revising designs to be cohesive in this project. Consistent design across the app improved user perception and facilitated more focused feedback.
