Music Instructor Studio App
I’ve got the music in me!
(Even during a pandemic)
After conducting qualitative research, my team and I created an iOS app from the ground up that effectively helps music instructors manage their lessons and communicate with their students
TL;DR
User Need
Virtual music instructors want to easily communicate with students so that they they can effectively teach their music lessons and provide a valuable teaching experience.
Solution
A new app that facilitates communication between music instructors and their students.
Impact
Increased user satisfaction by 40%!
The Team
Client- Nabi Music
A service that connects music instructors with parents with the goal of setting up music lessons.
Team
Lacey Langlois, Jenny Ruan, Rebecca Medina, and Kiara Martin
My Role
I worked as a UX/UI designer. I lead the research process. I also ideated, designed, prototyped and tested solutions. I collaborated with a team using Miro and Figma.
Image of my team and me meeting with our client.
eKickoff
The Challenge…
(Besides the COVID-19 Pandemic)
Our initial challenge was to make Nabi into an intuitive tool that instructors can use, beyond matching them with students, which was its primary use prior to this project.
Initial Assumptions
Before user testing:
We thought our main focus would be on the registration and profile process because it was time-consuming and buggy.
We based this on a heuristic evaluation and violations within this section, such as:
Not marking which fields are required
Not allowing users to delete information if an error was made
Research Methodologies
1x1 interviews with usability test
Comparative analysis
Persona & Journey Map
Interviews and Usability Test
Recruitment
5 total users
Several users were Nabi Music instructors recruited by the client
Additional users were recruited through a screener survey
Meeting with the users
When meeting with our target users, we performed a combination of user interviews and usability testing. We asked questions and then had users navigate through designs from Nabi Music’s website. We closed out by getting their overall thoughts and impressions.
Findings
3/5 Users:
wanted an easy way for lessons to be scheduled and rescheduled quickly without using Nabi Music as a middle-man.
3/5 Users:
wished they had a way to communicate with students and parents directly—They felt Nabi Music fell short.
3/5 Users:
wished they had a messaging system to message students directly.
3/5 Users:
Thought the customization of the feedback page could be improved.
4/5 Users
use other tools to send learning materials to students for practice in-between lessons.
2/5 Users
Would recommend Nabi Music to others.
Competitive Analysis
Next I worked with my team to create a competitive and comparative analysis in order to see where Nabi may fall short. We found that other sites had key communication features that Nabi Music didn’t have. These include:
An Online platform with messaging to facilitate communication
A system to manage lessons
The ability for instructors to give assignments
These were competitors used in the comparison:
Synthesis
We took all the information from the interviews, usability tests, and competitive analysis and created an affinity map.
My teammate and I working through our affinity map (we may have had too much fun in the process).
While we think it’s important to fix the heuristic violations within registration and profile flow, we realized we could provide more value focusing on instructors’ pain points related to communication.
Not what we expected!
We quickly learned that, despite our assumptions, the users found all questions in the registration and profile process necessary and didn’t mind the length it took to complete.
This meant the main issue with registration and profile flow was the bugs and heuristic violations. While we think it’s important to make these fixes, we realized we could provide more value in other areas. We sent a complete list of the bugs and heuristic violations we found to the client in order to make the fixes.
Each user had complaints related to communication difficulties
We found a common theme among communication frustrations. We felt we could provide the most value tackling this issue.
Persona and Journey Map
To help our stakeholders, as well as ourselves, better empathize with the user to come up with the best solution, we created a persona and a journey map.
This persona represents the target user, a virtual music instructor.
This journey map shows where the biggest pain points are for users looking to conduct a student lesson. The biggest dips are often problems that could be solved through seamless communication.
What does it all mean?
Interview Research Insights
Instructors used Nabi to be matched with new students for lessons, however, it did not provide much value beyond that because they didn’t feel it provided a way to facilitate virtual learning.
This was important to instructors because they needed to move away from in-person lessons and adjust to teaching online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instructors’ didn’t have a way to directly communicate with parents and students to check-in, send assignments, or reschedule lessons.
Using Nabi Music support as a middle-man to communicate with students was slow and inefficient.
Users thought they could provide more value to their students if there was a comprehensive feedback rubric they could send after each lesson to help the student understand areas where they can improve.
How might we provide intuitive communication tools for instructors, so that they can effectively teach their music lessons and provide a valuable teaching experience?
The Solution
A new App that facilitates communication between music instructors and their students.
The App would Include:
A messaging system within Nabi so that instructors can chat with students and parents
An availability feature to allow lessons to be automatically scheduled by parents
A rescheduling feature where rescheduling requests are created
An assignment feature where instructors can upload materials that allow students to practice outside of lessons
A more detailed Feedback page for instructors to highlight strengths and weaknesses
A studio page that allows instructors to keep track of their lessons in order to determine if rescheduling is needed or if feedback needs to be given
Information Architecture
IA for the Nabi Music App. I worked on the “Schedule” section.
The Design
Sketches
Next, we sketched out designs. This Allowed us to quickly iterate and refine them before making mid-fidelity wireframes.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
We created mid-fidelity wireframes wireframes. I took the lead for the scheduling and availability features. You can see examples of the wireframes I made below. Once completed with the client’s feedback implemented, I created a prototype for our second round of user testing!
Usability Test
The team and I looking for patterns in order to determine how we could improve out designs. (You can see me allllll the way up in the upper righthand corner.)
Usability Testing Part 2
Using the prototype created from the mid-fidelity wireframes, I conducted usability tests with our target users.
Then my team and I put all of the feedback together in an affinity map. Overall, we received positive feedback.
In terms of improvements, these were the takeaways we discovered from the users:
It was difficult to figure out how to mark a student absent
Users were confused by the plus button in the messaging feature because the same symbol was used for both creating new messages and revealing more options
Users wanted to see lessons that are already scheduled when they edit their availability
Users thought the symbol used on the feedback button for the homepage was confusing and its function was unclear
Findings
5/5 Users:
Thought the availability and reschedule lessons feature would add value.
5/5 Users:
Now think Nabi music has useful communication features.
4/5 Users:
Would use the messaging feature frequently.
4/5 Users:
Thought the updated feedback feature would be useful to student progress.
4/5 Users
Thought the assignment feature was useful and would use it frequently.
5/5 Users
Would recommend Nabi Music to others.
High-Fidelity Iterations
This is a wireflow showing all of the screens my team and I made. I designed the scheduling and availability flows.
My Designs up Close
So now what?
Next steps
Nabi Music is currently working to develop an iOS app using our designs. There are planned to release in the near future.
Future Plans
Based on our user interviews, we found a couple other features that could be useful, however we were not able to design them while remaining within scope. We recommended Nabi Music consider adding these features down the line:
Conclusion
Overall, the Nabi Music app fills gaps that the website was missing. It revolutionizes its primary function. It will no longer only be a service that pairs instructors and students. It will also be used as a tool that instructors can use to communicate with students directly, give students assignments, suggest reschedules, provide availability for lessons, and give comprehensive feedback. We feel the future of Nabi Music is just getting started, we can’t wait to see it flourish!