CASE STUDY
STREAMING OUR WELLBEING
Mindfully Designing An Artists' Portal
CLIENT
Aloharmony
INDUSTRY
Health & Wellness
TIMELINE
3 Weeks
ROLE
Product Designer
UX Designer
Researcher
TOOLS
Figma
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
"Prioritization of health has supercharged growth in the wellness industry...as the popularity of wellness content grows, the landscape is becoming increasingly crowded."
Shopify, "Industry Insights", Dec. 2022
Music and sound therapies as a tool to regulate emotions is not new and in the wake of the pandemic, people have shifted focus from their exhausted eyes to their newly-open ears.
Aloharmony, provides a specialized platform for innovative content featuring properties that affect biometrics such as heart rate, brain waves, and sleep patterns.
To help the company accommodate the growing number of emerging creators, our team of four developed Aloharmony Artists, a contributor portal that will streamline the content curation and performance tracking processes between Aloharmony's internal team and its artist roster.
OVERVIEW
GOOD VIBRATIONS
WELLNESS BY NUMBERS
75%
of people use music & meditation for stress reduction & productivity
64%
of people use a variety of health & wellness content regularly
48%
of people follow multiple health & wellness content creators
As the popularity of meditation and soundscape platforms grow and mainstream music streamers add mood-changing, stress-reducing, focus-enhancing music to core channels, emerging wellness creatives struggle to break through on prominent streaming platforms, but rely on the detailed data provided by those services to inform their career strategy.
Aloharmony provides a platform for these niche wellness creators. In order to accommodate the needs of their existing artists and attract more content contributors, Aloharmony needs to provide a more streamlined experience for their roster of creators to submit content and access competitive performance metrics.
CONTEXT
STRESS OF WELLNESS
THE CHALLENGE
How might we leverage Aloharmony’s niche platform to support emerging wellness creators’ need for exposure, control of their content, competitive metrics, and transparent financial information?
"It feels hard to be seen as artists on the big streaming platforms. Most Spotify artists get zero views."
"I have fans in Mexico, so it's really nice to see where where all my listeners are from and is important for planning places to tour."
"Sometimes I can only publish my music and that's it. I don't know what happens after."
Employing a combination of research methods, we set out to better understand the wellness space, how this industry's creators approach content distribution compared to other artists, and what features are crucial for their growth.
METHODS
Competitive & Comparative Analysis
User Interviews
Affinity Mapping
Persona Development
RESEARCH & INSIGHTS
DISCOVERY
TAKEAWAYS
01
Wellness artists produce diverse content which they share on a variety of different platforms.
02
Creatives use detailed metrics to inform future content & professional direction.
03
Artists need to third-party distributors to manage submissions on other platforms.
04
Creatives feel most platforms are not communicative & transparent with finances.
OUR USER
SOULFUL CONTENT CREATOR
Based on the research we identified how this industry's creators approach content distribution compared to other artists, and what is crucial for their growth. Using these insights we compiled the core traits, needs, and goals of these creators and personified them.
ESSENCE
"Without an audience, you are not relevant, and becoming irrelevant is a constant fear...it's the only job where you get an instant report card."
With the persona in hand, our team started to ideate design solutions while keeping our personas' needs top of mind.
We utilized Must-Could-Should-Won’t and Feature Prioritization matrices. These methods helped us highlight the most essential features from our research to be part of our minimum viable product (MVP).
DESIGN FEATURES
STRESS LESS
VISIBILTY
Artists want all their diverse content accessible in one place where they can gain more exposure and easily promote it to their existing audience.
01
Multimedia, genre and biometric properties tags appropriate to their niche content.
02
Multimedia, genre and biometric properties tags appropriate to their niche content.
01
Dashboard displays most recent top-line metrics.
02
Analytics page provides a macro level view of data.
03
My Metrics is a detailed micro level view.
04
Global Metrics is an interactive map view of content performance.
BRAND EXPANSION
Artists want to know how and where they can expand their brand, increase touring & secure high-profile sponsorships.
01
Dashboard alerts users to new unread messages.
02
Artists can upload new content via the Uploads page with a comprehensive tagging system.
03
Messaging system allows for open lines of communication with internal team.
ACTIVE PARTICIPATION
Artists want the option to manage uploading content without a third party and want consistent communication about content status.
CENTRAL CONTROL
Artists want transparent up-to-date financial information and to control access to their funds, performance metrics and other features.
01
Dashboard features current revenue earnings.
02
Finances page is a transparent breakdown of how revenue is being generated with a link to withdraw funds.
03
Artists can designate permissions for their team members' access through the Settings page.
CONCLUSION
EVOLVING
Upon delivery we believe that this initial iteration serves the most crucial needs of the artists and gives Aloharmony competitive feature offerings on par with other streaming platforms. While continued user testing will inform future improvements to Aloharmony Artists, our team identified certain features that would meet the expanding needs of Aloharmony and its artists.
DELIVERABLES
Research & Findings
High Fidelity Prototype
Component Library
Spec Doc
Proposed Features for Future Iterations
An integrated feature in Aloharmony's Admin Dashboard to facilitate the approval process as artists submit content through the Aloharmony Artists' portal.
A tutorial walk-through of the portal's features. Many artists were already familiar with these types of contributor dashboards, but others may find the data overwhelming.
A community feature that would allow artists on the platform to connect, communicate, and collaborate on future content.
TESTING
76%
Across all features in the mid-fi prototype tests
91%
Across all features in the hi-fi prototype tests
Average Satisfaction Rate
84%
Across all features in the mid-fi prototype tests
98%
Across all features in the hi-fi prototype tests