A sentiment-driven musical experience that connects listeners and performers.
FeelBeats
Contributions
- Participatory Design
- Interview
- Research
- Contextual Inquiry
- Ideation
- Mobile Design
Role
- Product Designer
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Frame-1407-1.png)
Problem Space
Musical artists face a variety of challenges, both financial and mental. Their professional success and sense of self-sufficiency are often dependent on listener support.
Although, the nowadays, the communication is generally single sided from musicians to listeners, with the lack of meaningful feedback coming from listeners.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Problem1.png)
How do we bridge the gap to create a better connection between
listeners and artists?
Insights
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Musician-2-2.png)
- Support for the listeners is important Knowing listeners’ support is very important to both musicians’ career development and sense of self-actualization that what they have been trying to achieve is affirmed.
- Want to make their music 2-way communication Musicians hope their music can become a two-way communication that they hope to create a space not only for themselves, but also for listeners to tell their feelings and stories.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Listner-4.png)
- What if others will judge me based on my feedback? Listeners often do not think of writing feedback to musicians because: (1) they lack motivation to compose and share feedback under the current mechanism, (2) they find the current threshold of expressing the abstract feelings is too high.
- Want to share music and get resonance Yet, there is time when listeners do want to share music they like along with their feelings with others and get resonance.
It’s all about “feeling”
What if…
Expressing feelings of music is easy, quick, and natural?
Feelings of music is turned into a way to share, promote, and discover music?
Music is a space for both musicians and listeners to add in their understandings and communicate?
Design Outcome
I designed, FeelBeats, a music streaming platform that focuses on elicitating listeners’
feelings of music and encouraging feeling-centered sharing between listeners and
artists.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Frame-1329.png)
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/listner-mobile-image-1.png)
Visual “atmosphere” and verbal “thoughts”
When listening to music, listeners can easily choose mood stickers to express the general feeling of the musical atmosphere. The visual captures their unique feelings, and also encourage them to write about thoughts in words.
Rationales
Many times, it is hard for listeners to express their feeling for songs to which they are listening. There should be some way of expressing the feelings which they are getting at the time of listening to that particular song. Therefore, I designed to decrease such barriers, hoping to hear from more listeners.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/listner-mobile-image-2.png)
A new way to look at music: experience and read about what people feel of music
For this, I came up with Discovery Section, where there will be a list of songs recommended by the listeners’ community. They can add or recommend songs with different mood stickers and stories associated with the songs. This means that Every day, a list of songs will be recommended to users, using others’ stories as a medium, for them to discover music and stories they feel resonant about.
Rationales
Listeners are fond of reading others’ personal experiences and discover new music based on others’ thoughts, compared to recommended by algorithms. Making music a co-created space by both artists and listeners add layers to the meaning of music, and motivate listeners to express more.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/listner-mobile-image-3.png)
Discover yourself over time
All entries are kept in one’s profile page, just like a music memory diary, for one to revisit and re-discover.
Rationales
Listeners often attach memory to music they listen to in different period of time, and the bonding between them and music is strengthened when the memory is revisited over time. Making their music experiences into diary provides the inner motivation for them to express for themselves and record authentic feelings.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/listner-mobile-image-4.png)
Establish connections with everyone that treasures the piece you love
Both listeners and artists are able to react to others’ feelings by liking the entry and adding thoughts easily. Besides, artists are able to add listeners’ entries to their collections for bookmarking and showcasing.
Rationales
One of the biggest reasons why listeners do not write feedback to music and artists is that they do not think artists will look into it. However, our research reveals the opposite: artists love reading about how people feel about music with their personal stories. Therefore, by providing the channel for artists to directly react to listeners’ thoughts, the motivation for both side to communicate is increased.
How I got here
To learn about musicians’ routines and the relationship between musicians and listeners, I began to conduct online secondary research and exemplar study, attend and observe local live music performance events, and interview musicians (also including music students and ex-musicians).
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Frame-84.png)
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Frame-85.png)
Musicians are craving high quality feedback that attaches meanings, shows one’s true feelings, and comes from experiences.
However, current online communication often does not satisfy this.
Communication
Clearly, listeners should not be the only one to hold responsibility: platform plays a big part in fostering feedback. To study existing channels and platforms for listeners to communicate their feedback to musicians, I conducted competitive analysis on 8 online channels and 2 offline (in person) channels based on the interactivity and quality of the listener feedback.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/interactivity.png)
Efforts and Barrier
For online platforms, higher interactivity means lower barriers to leave comment, and it often leads to lower feedback quality, considering the Internet is a public and anonymous space where people do not invest much efforts.
Platform Culture
The atmosphere and culture of the online platform determines the quality of content: platforms where irrelevant feedback is dominant (e.g. YouTube) tend to generate more low quality content, while platforms where quality content (e.g. NetEase Music) is advocated will encourage more high quality content.
Musician’s Approachability
The nearer and more approachable the musicians are to listeners, the more likely that high quality feedback will be generated.
To learn about how listeners generate feedback, I conducted interviews, yet discovered that when listening to music online, many listeners seldom have serious attempts to write and think of writing music reactions due to barriers of both lack of motivation and lack of confidence to produce:
Lack of motivation
Music often serves as background music. Thus, listeners generally don’t take time to think.
Even if they do take down something, they don’t know who to share with: not in the comment section because nobody is talking about music there, not with musicians because they’re sure musicians won’t be interested, not with friends because it’s hard to find someone who resonate with their music feelings.
Lack of confidence
Staying aware and articulating their abstract feelings of music is hard. Often time, they do not where and how to start (particularly when there is no prompt), and fear that the threshold for publishing is too high.
Despite these barriers, most listeners do have the “aha” moments when they feel strong they want to express and share.
But in what way?
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/forms-content-of-expression.png)
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/motivations-of-sharing.png)
Ideation
quality and listerns' efforts for feedbacks
From the research, i synethsized and summarized the key value of musicians and listeners: what are most important to them in feedback generation and sharing. Musicians are looking for feedback of high value and quality, while listeners are looking for low barrier and more motivations of producing feedback.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Ideation1-1.png)
I brainstormed rounds of ideas regarding feedback generation and sharing mechanisms, and analyze them based on their value to musicians, and the perceived barrier of producing to listeners.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/book-image.png)
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/value-musian.png)
I am therefore looking for ways to ensure high quality feedback, yet not too hard for listeners to generate. Therefore, from our analysis, music experience/story sharing is the one with most potential.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/story-1.png)
Design
I drafted out the wireframes capturing the core idea and flow of (1) listener composing feelings of music, (2) listener discovering others’ feelings of music, (3) for musicians to react to listeners’ feelings.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/wire-frame-image.png)
To test out the concept in a quick and dirty fashion, I wanted to know (1) Whether in practice, such planning method achieves the goal this product aims for: to save resources and to make people feel safe and in control as we expected, (2) What thoughts and problems people may have when following the plan.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Musician-2-3.png)
- “Listeners’ messages motivates me!” Musicians loved the idea of seeing different people’s messages and interpretation of their music, that they add meanings to the original music, and they like to listen to listeners’ stories.
- “There may be more ways to interact with these feedback” Expression being collected has great potential to spread works and engage fans. Therefore, from musicians’ side, there are many more things to do with these data beside simply reading and “liking”.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Listner-5.png)
- “Can it be more simpler?” For listeners, getting people to switch task to create the seemingly high-demanded feedback isn’t easy, particularly when music is in the background. Throwing everything at once is overwhelming.
- “Timing is important to be considered” Sometimes, the feeling of music happens suddenly yet one hasn’t had time to record everything at that time; and sometimes the feeling needs time to foster.
As a content platform, motivating people to share more and share better is the most important thing.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/feedback-image.png)
Based on research and brainstorming, I worked on improving the flow of composing music feedback by considering use cases. I categorized the timing when a listener has strong feelings of music into 3 cases:
Brief
Listen and Feel
When listening to a song, the listener has feeling naturally and thinks of things he/she wants to express.
Busy in Background
Listener is busy doing other things with music in background, has the pulse to say something, but can’t at the moment.
Think of a Song
Other things remind the listener of expressing about a song.
Needs
Natural and easy reactions, support for guidance, fit into the music atmosphere.
Quick reactions, support for revisiting, keep the feelings alive.
Support for rich emotion expression, find the song and match the feeling.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/staircase-image.png)
To meet the needs of different cases and users, I simplified and broke the big feedback composition chunk into (1.) Building atmosphere collage using provided vibe stickers, (2.) Compose thoughts with visuals and lyrics as inspiration and prompts to faciliate natural experience.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/tree-plan-1.png)
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/final-design-image.png)
Listeners read and write for resonance: I use feelings as the medium that carry music to people. Everyday, listeners wil receive a list of music for discovery that match feelings expressed previously.
I design to use proper social features to encourage (1) expression sharing, and
(2) feeling-centered music spreading, viewing, and searching.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/FeelSharing-1.png)
For the musician interaction part, I design to complete the feedback cycle between musicians and listeners: (1) for musicians to show their thoughts, (2) for musicians to add listener feedback to collection for future usages, (3) and to provide incentives for listeners to engage more.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/musian-interaction.png)
Future Scope
In the future, more work can be done on investigating how the valuable data which was gathered in the app can be utilized in various ways. For example, for musicians, it provides them with promotional resources, just to name a few:
Artist Website Plugin
With a plug-in function, musicians can collect their favorite feedback to put on their websites for visitors to read.
Digital Promotion Materials
The data can be used for digital posters of live concerts or other materials, which can convey the messages in music to listeners indirectly.
Live Performance Add-Ons
Live performance is a great place for musicians to strengthen bonds with listeners. By printing feelings collected on tickets, gifts, or displaying them on the wall, listeners become more engaged with the mutual communication.
With a deeper understanding of musicians, listeners are more likely to support them, which can help upcoming musicians to build an audience base. These usages all have the potential to help both the music and musicians themselves gain popularity in a way that do not require compromises in music-making for commercial purposes and, thus, can improve both the mental and financial well-being of musicians.
I also envisioned the scenarios where the visual experience crafted by listeners can be enpowered by tangible experience devices such as projectors. Designing for immersive experience to maximize the impact of users’ atmospheres to inspire and engage more people into music enjoying and expression.
![](http://nisargrajpura.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/projector-image.png)
Reflection
Design with people, not for people:
Designers don’t know everything and shouldn’t pretend or try too hard to know everything. Be a humble learner, talk with people, get them involved in the process (not just interviews at the start or testing in the end), and let them design things.
Just do it:
In this project, I’ve gone through a long research process and discussed a lot on the concept- and system-level before deiciding to move on to a particular path. Next time, it would be better if I can start the rapid prototyping process earlier to get more time to polish the actual design.