Say hello to Snack - a new social audio sharing app designed for music and podcast enthusiasts to discover, share, and build a community around their favorite audio.
Snack - sharing audio goodness
#App_Concept
#UI_Design
#UX_Design
#Branding
In this individual project, I utilized my skills in branding, UI, and UX design to explore the creation of a new social app for sharing music and podcasts, driven by my own frustration at the limited opportunities for social engagement over audio content.
Inspired by editorial design principles, I aimed to develop a platform that would enable better possibilities for sharing audio snippets and building a community centered around a love for music and podcasts, ultimately seeking to enhance the user experience while incorporating visually appealing design elements.
UI Design
UX Design
App Concept
Branding
Berghs School of Communication
RESEARCH
Exploring new perspectives, insights, and opportunities to inform the design process.
With an open mind about what the product might offer, I entered the research phase, which included desktop research, conducting 10 interviews, and testing other social audio sharing apps.
Research findings - podcast and social media trends
Selected quotes from 10 interviews
"It's a shame that I don't have more insight into my friends' musical preferences - I'm always eager to discover new artists and genres."
Eric A, Music enthusiast
CREATIVE BRIEF
Refining the problem, identifying opportunities, and developing a solid app concept.
Problem:
Existing apps don't offer satisfactory snippet sharing.
There’s a big gap in the market for a simple that makes it possible to share audio - music and podcasts - with friends.
Opportunity:
A simple platform for sharing audio could meet the demand of podcast and music enthusiasts looking for a social discovery experience.
Position:
Snack is a social audio sharing app that provides a fresh approach to discovering music and podcasts. It's a space where users can share curated content and create personal "Digests" to share multiple audio tracks.
With a focus on friendship and curation, users can send direct audio snippets to each other without sharing to the feed.
Brand personality:
Snack is a welcoming and authentic app that prioritizes building a community of audio enthusiasts. User-generated content is highly valued, and the app encourages discovery and sharing of new audio favorites among its users.
Brand principles:
To align with the brand's personality, I have applied the following principles:
- Authenticity
- Seriousness
- Curiosity
- Simplicity
branding development
Establishing the brand persona
My goal was to select a name that isn't currently associated with audio, but rather evokes the idea of small, tasty bites. I believe that the connection to something edible is an intuitive one, which is also why I named the newsletters "Digests."
Snack's primary focus is on curated newsletters, which I associate with a slower, more analog form of communication similar to newspapers. To create Snack's visual identity, I drew inspiration from the visual language of newspapers and incorporated it into my mood board.
The mood board incorporates both analog and digital elements from newspapers, as well as examples of appealing serif fonts.
Given that serif fonts are unusual in digital products, and my aim was to create a distinctive social media platform, I decided to work with them for Snack's design.
After conducting a benchmark analysis, I discovered that many music apps have a "techy" aesthetic, which didn't align with the brand personality I had in mind for Snack. As a result, I decided to take a different approach in order to position Snack in a unique and distinct way.
Benchmark, I didn't want to position Snack like most other music apps.
When starting the design process for Snack, I explored different visual paths for both branding and UI/Layout simultaneously.
LAYOUT EXPLORATION
Exploring the expression of the Snack app through numerous different layouts and brand assets
I dedicated a significant portion of my time to experimenting with various options for the home feed and digest posts. It was a rewarding trial and error process that allowed me to test multiple designs and assess their effectiveness."
Brand guidelines
Reaching a branding milestone
At this point, I was able to progress to more hifi UI Design.
UI Design
Developing a user-friendly and visually attractive interface.
Home
Snack's main screen shows a feed of digests with up to 5 track covers, heading, preamble, author, and publishing time.
Home
Keep track of your digest draft by accessing it easily from the top of the feed. To view a digest, simply tap on the corresponding post in the feed.
Chat and profile pages can be reached from the top navigation area, which also hosts the Snack logo.
Easily access chat and your profile page from the top navigation area, which also hosts the Snack logo.
Digest
I believe that great audio speaks for itself, which is why the top navigation area is kept minimil when you’re viewing a digest.
It’s simple to play all tracks or track snippets within a digest, so you can fully immerse yourself in a smooth listening experience and discover new favorites.
Digest
Browse through each digest with ease. Every track is displayed with its caption, allowing you to quickly find what you're looking for. Simply tap on a track to start playing and explore new favorites.
Every track has its own unique layout, highlighting the distinctiveness of each digest. This is ment to give a one-of-a-kind experience where both content and layout is uniquely different.
The author is also introduced with a short blurb at the bottom of the digest, similar to a newspaper article
Every track has its own unique layout, highlighting the distinctiveness of each digest. This is ment to give a one-of-a-kind experience where both content and layout is uniquely different.
CREATE AND EDIT DIGEST
Developing functionalities for easy creation and editing of digests
To be able to work with drafts easily, a drawer with the digest tool was added.
Create track - opens up when entering the Snack app via track sharing from an external music platform like Spotify.
Add new track - a functionality to scroll through recently played tracks and adding them to the digest - all within the Snack app.
Text and track editor - edit existing digest content, and possibility to change track layout.
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