Synth, music made for you.
Synth was created in an effort to make people more efficient and productive using music. Synth is a music streaming platform that actively creates AI powered personal music for individuals or groups using their own neural network. By providing a user experience that integrates neural activity data with music creation, the platform aims to change the way people discover and experience music in their daily lives.
In this case study, we will look at the design and development of the Synth platform, as well as the project's challenges and successes. We will go over the research, testing, and gameified challenges that were used to develop this hypothesis and create a solution.
UX & UI Design, Motion Graphics, Brand Strategy
Team Members
Ashok Suresh Thirunilathil, Nabhya Parmar
Instructor
Blake Hudelson
Duration
12 Weeks
Tools
Figma, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator
My roles
UX & UI Designer
Graphic Designer
Over the course of this project, I put on multiple hats. This includes conducting research, user interviews and moderation, graphic design and motion design as part of the branding, and finally create the visual design of the product.
So, what is Synth?
Synth is an AI powered music platform that creates music using your neural network to enhance your everyday.
Problem statement
How do we create a music streaming platform that creates music for users to help them perform their tasks at their best?
Process
Our process began first by understanding who our users are? What kind of music do they like to listen to? What platforms do they use? What audio devices do they prefer?To answer these question, we did two things. We first conducted a game based experiment with our potential users to test our hypothesis. Next, we further put out a survey to understand the impact music has on people and society as a whole.
Conducting the Gamestorming session
Survey results collected
Key insights
Their choice in music is affected by their mood, the activity that they are doing, and the expected cognitive load of the task
Music options such as binaural beats and lo-fi music isn’t effective
They want to be able to control their choices while depending on the platforms recommendation to curate their playlist for any task
They prefer audio without vocals while accomplishing tasks
Creating the experience map
Experience map takeaways
How might we personalize the platform for our customers needs?
How might we learn and adapt from their experiences?
How might we reduce our customers’ time to fun while making the onboarding process a lot more meaningful?
The brand
Three major pillars that we decided would be our guiding principles for our brand experience are , “Sense”, “Evolution”, “Human”.
As a part of the brand experience, Synth would use twelve distinct elements, each of whom represent a specific human emotion. These elements are also reflective of the 12 notes of music.
Each icon represents a specific emption
Surrealism
Synth uses surreal imagery to create a calm and otherworldly brand experience, evoking serenity and beauty beyond the ordinary.
Creation of custom imagery to express the brand
Generative art
Staying true to our brand and product, we look towards leveraging similar technology through AI generated images created using the users’ prompts.
Images generated using DALL-E
The technology
Synth uses scientific literature and user input to create a personalized soundtrack. The EEG (Electroencephalography) sensors detect brainwaves and provide real-time feedback on mental state, improving mental wellbeing. With user feedback and large-scale usage, Synth continuously learns and improves for a better user experience.
How does the technology work
Key flows
Some important ‘Job stories’ and ‘How might we’ statements helped us define some key areas to work towards developing Synth.
Minimal time to fun while using the platform. Give your task, and start listening.
Quick mode selection and engaging training modules with games and skill training.
Progress made visible by viewing activities and insights with fun awards to keep up the motivation.
Continuous feedback
To keep the users engaged, it was important to bring it different forms of feedback throughout the experience. This is done through constant monitoring of brain activity as well as a quick review at the end of a listening session.
The users are also provided with insights as rewards where they can learn more about themselves.
New paradigmes of interaction
As an element of delight, Synth has mini-games that use the same neural activity to control characters in the game. This helps build focus and creates new paradigms of interaction.
Visualizing data
We represent data in two different styles. The first one takes inspiration from a vinyl record to show the users’ daily/weekly recap. The second is a more detailed look into the everyday through an interactive scrubber with a list of all the activities performed on the platform.
Visual of the weekly recap
Visual of the daily recap
In an effort to physically manifest the impact made by Synth for the user, there is also a merchandise section where users can create customised merchandise made by them as their activities.
Merchendise section on the platform
Additional touch points
To be more in sync with the users, a big part of the experience is having Synth as part of their ecosystem. Whether it's through stackable widgets or a simple watch face UI that allows them to control their player quickly. We even considered how to better integrate Synth with the constant advances in technology being made everyday.
Partnerships
The usage of Synth can also be platform agnostic. Creating a Synth API and partnering with popular applications such as Spotify can expand the Synth experience.
Learnings
We learned a lot along the way about the value of effective teamwork, identifying opportunities, providing and receiving feedback, making informed decisions, and exploring new frontiers in immersive technologies. We were able to improve our problem-solving abilities and broaden our perspectives by focusing on these key areas.
Furthermore, our journey enabled us to gain a better understanding of the difficulties and complexities involved in developing immersive technologies. We learned how to balance technical considerations with user experience, as well as how to navigate the ever-changing hardware and software landscape. We also gained valuable project management and communication experience.
What worked and what didn’t
What would made Synth a success is the reduced time to fun process from the application. Reducing the time to fun let’s Synth be an ambient application that helps them enhance their everyday activities without being distracted.
To help users better adopt this new technology, improvements can be made to the onboarding process where the users are explained the working of the tech and how they could navigate it better. Additionally, gathering feedback after each session might become an unnecessary addition to their users’ journeys as they do about their daily activities.
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