Singoo website
A platform for singers of all levels to find their ideal vocal coach and start their singing journey through virtual lessons.
Project date: March - May 2024
My role: Research, personas, wireframing, task & user flows, prototyping, usability testing
Team: Product Manager, Group Crit peers
Overview
Singing is a unique type of hobby that is often viewed as an innate ability or gift, as opposed to a skill that can be improved on through continuous dedication and practice. Compared to countless other ‘learnable’ skills, singing therefore continues to be one that people hesitate to invest time and money in.
Even for myself, with some singing experience, I found my motivation for singing had been dwindling after graduating university. Without the appropriate guidance and regular choir rehearsals to keep me focused, I would often feel I was going nowhere whenever I tried to practice on my own.
I found myself asking the question, how do we democratise singing in a digital space so that every type of singer feels welcomed and motivated to improve?
In an attempt to tackle this problem, Singoo was created with the aim of allowing singers of all levels to feel comfortable finding a professional vocal coach, from the comfort of their own homes.
Goals & Objectives
Learn how people want to track progress
Determine people’s singing goals
Discover people’s singing journeys
Uncover any blockers people may have
Competitive Research
In order to understand what digital platforms currently exist for people who wish to improve their singing, I conducted a SWOT analysis of three competitors:
1. Vocal Image
2. Simply Sing
3. Yousician
Vocal Image
Simply Sing
Yousician
Through my analysis, I discovered that except for Simply Sing (which is more of a karaoke app), none of the major competitors in the market are singing specific. Vocal Image serves as both a singing and a general voice-improvement platform for people looking to improve their speaking skills. And Yousician, notably the most famous of the three, caters to all types of musicians, singers and instrumentalists alike. This served as a clear sign to me that there was a space to be filled, especially on virtual vocal coaching and progress tracking fronts.
Interviews
Now that I had scoped out the competitive landscape of singing improvement apps and websites, I knew it was time to interview people in my target audience and broaden my understanding of the problem by confirming or debunking my assumptions. I spent up to an hour with each person on Zoom, employing 21 open-ended questions to address the topics of (1) learning styles & techniques, (2) goals, motivations & blockers, (3) tracking progress, (4) online learning and (5) community.
Number of participants: 5
Age range: 28-31
Gender: 3 women, 2 men
Interests: Singing
Location: Tokyo, Sapporo, Boston, London
Key Insights
Insight #1
Users find it difficult to relate to a vocal coach who is dissimilar to them in terms of demographics and interests.
Insight #2
Users enjoy singing with others as long as they don’t feel pressured or judged.
Insight #3
Users prefer active engagement with the material or with a teacher rather than watching videos.
Insight #4
Users struggle to enjoy singing when they are unable to find songs that are of their preferred genres that also fall within their vocal range.
Insight #5
Users feel motivated to practice when they have goals to work towards and track progress against.
Insight #6
Users are skeptical of gamified skill-improvement apps that seem gimmicky and make them feel pressured.
After speaking to people about their singing journeys and uncovering their motivations, needs and pain points, I was able to identify six key insights from what I was hearing across my participants’ experiences. It was also noteworthy that none of the participants had had any experience using skill-improvement apps or websites to work on their singing. This further validated my conviction that there was a void in the market that needed to be filled by users.
Personas
Next, I wanted to build on my research by visualising my findings. I decided to create user personas to better inform my designs before moving onto the ideation phase. While designing, I used Varun’s persona as a constant reference and reminder to keep my users top of mind.
In addition to Varun, I created a second persona for Nadine, a vocal coach. Due to limited time and resources, I was unable to interview with vocal coaches, but I still thought it would be a helpful exercise to create a persona for one to help me gain a fuller understanding for the platform for which I was designing.
I’d like to explore ways to help shy singers to feel safe and motivated while learning because they are concerned about being judged, either by peers or vocal coaches.
Defining the problem
I’d like to explore ways to help users find a suitable vocal coach because they find it difficult to relate to and be motivated to learn with a vocal coach who is dissimilar to them in terms of demographics and interests.
I’d like to explore ways to help users have fun while learning in an authentic way that makes them feel connected because they are skeptical of and disinclined to use gamified skill-improvement apps/websites that veer towards gimmickry and pressure-based learning approaches.
Now that I had created a persona to represent my users’ motivations, needs and pain points, next I wanted to narrow down the problem to three problem statements to guide my designs.
How might we streamline the process of finding a vocal coach to make it as easy as possible for users?
How might we support users in understanding and narrowing down their options with regards to selecting a vocal coach?
How might we make users feel motivated and encouraged to learn without eliciting negative feelings like judgment?
How might we create an authentic community that fosters enjoyable learning experiences for users who are skeptical of gamified and pressure-based learning approaches to ensure they feel supported through their learning journeys?
Task flows
Before diving into the UI and branding of my designs, I leveraged my research findings to identify two key task flows that would allow users to achieve their main goals on the website. These task flows would constitute the beginnings of my early stage wireframes.
Branding
Once the task flows and low-fidelity wireframes had been laid out, I began working on the branding and UI elements for the website. For the logo, I decided to use an easily recognisable image of a cockatoo. Besides the fact that the word cockatoo conveniently rhymes with the brand name Singoo, cockatoos themselves are also known for their ability to mimic voices and sing, which fit nicely with the concept of the website as a platform to help people improve their singing. For the colours, I wanted the palette to speak directly to the brand values of creativity, warmth, confidence and fun, which I channeled through the various shades of purple, orange accents and small pops of pink.
Prototype
What: High-fidelity click-through prototype made using Figma
Why: Having created all of my wireframes in Figma, it made sense to make use of the full prototype functionality of the software by building out the interactions in the same platform.
— Test & Iterate —
Usability testing
Primary goals for the usability testing:
1) Identify the main issues that users face while completing the task flows.
2) Prioritise issues by frequency and severity and iterate designs as needed.
3) Assess the overall satisfaction that users feel while using the website.
Participant overview:
5 participants (4 women & 1 man)
Age range of 20-30
All interested in singing
Located in Japan and the US
Results:
1) Filter flow
100% of users completed the tasks
6/7 - average satisfaction score
2) Booking flow
100% of users completed the tasks
5.8/7 - average satisfaction score
Issues identified:
4/5 USERS
Had an issue with the drop-down genres vs. filters modal.
2/5 USERS
Thought the “Book Now” button meant confirm lesson.
4/5 USERS
Experienced confusion around whether filters were required or optional.
3/5 USERS
Wanted the calendar to show when they are available to avoid pressing every date.
Iterations
1) Revisions to the Filter flow
The high-fidelity prototypes of the two task flows were tested over 30-minute Zoom call sessions with each participant.
2) Revisions to the Booking flow
Final Prototype
Conclusion
The results from my testing sessions were a success in so far as (1) there was a clear consensus on the types of issues that needed to be solved, (2) the issues that arose were relatively easy fixes and (3) the majority of users rated their satisfaction and ease of completing the flows very highly. Users also mentioned that they had never seen a platform similar to this one in which they could filter for the vocal coach’s teaching style — encouraging, fun & casual, detailed feedback etc. — which they appreciated. This feedback confirms my initial findings from my user interviews, in which I found that there was a resounding need to feel safe and accepted while learning to sing.
Future considerations
1) Expand my pool of interview participants
Interviewing people of more varied age groups as well as including absolute beginners could have introduced interesting insights to my research.
Given the limited time frame for the project, there were areas of the research and design that could have benefited from expanded time and resources.
2) Design for the second type of user — the vocal coach
Interviewing vocal coaches would have better informed my second persona, Nadine, and would have allowed me to design screens for the vocal coach’s experience.
3) Test with more users after my iterations
With more time, I could have tested my revisions that I made after usability testing to ensure that I had properly solved the issues.