Keeping musos on time
Overview. You know when you need to achieve anything in a group setting, it suddenly becomes really hard to coordinate everyone s availability, capability and progress? In the end this burden can make the task not even look worth doing in the first place! Well, this is the case for a lot of amateur musicians starting a band. Wouldn t it be great if we could take the pain of organising, following up, coordinating out of the musical process, leaving everyone free to enjoy the journey? Well, thankfully Ban has the answer! This app provides one simple place for band members to keep track of everything (time, practices, songs, set lists and progress), leaving them free to be better musicians! organisation tool motivational tool arranging practices tracking progress across practices accountability for band members store set lists and songs
User research. Two sets of interviews were conducted with 11 musicians to identify their goals. The following questions were asked: How long were you in a band for? Why not longer/shorter? If the band is now broken up - why? What was the series of events that led up to that? What are the reasons you wanted to be in a band? What were your motivations for continuing the band? How did you arrange gigs? What is hard to find gigs? Where did you know your band mates from? Who initiated the band? Who drove the progression of the band? Was there ever any difficulty in that? How much practice did you do in between gigs and band jams? Did everyone do the same amount of practice between gigs and jams? Lets move to the administrative side of being in a band. How did you organise practices? Was it ever hard find a time or place or practice? What was the songwriting/composition process? What are the good parts of collaboration? What are the bad parts of collaboration? How did you find inspiration? What might have made this process easier?
research findings. Some conclusions were drawn from the interviews to form customer goals: Most musicians were in a band for less than 2 years. The main cause of bands ending was lack of motivation to progress. Music being a hobby didn t take precedence in the user s life, so when it became too much work, the band ended. Musicians formed their bands for the personal fun and enjoyment of playing with other people and performing. Playing together was seen as more rewarding than playing alone. Many bands form in the first place because of an opportunity to gig. Gigs play a big role in motivating bands to continue working hard - an end goal. Gigs should be logged into the app so that musicians can keep tract of their progress towards that goal. Bands are usually formed with pre existing friends, so there isn t a real need to source musicians through the app. Often one person in the band takes the reigns to drive other members attendance and practice. Rarely do bands have a balance of input. The app should help balance this and take weight off one person doing all the work. Practices are most commonly organised via text message. Unless a list of songs is written down before a practice, the band can easily get off track.
Competitive Analysis. Artist Growth An app for professional bands which takes the place of a band manager. The most relevant aspects of this app are the tracking of team members, logging of tasks and planning for events. Ban will be aimed at amateur bands, so the finance and business goals featured in Artist Growth are not a necessary inclusion. This app has a very detailed but well designed interface. Features: tracks finances, inventory, budgets, payment for band members, business growth Schedule gigs and manage events Collect royalties from performances Manage team members and tasks Bandbook This website could be described as Facebook, for bands. It has a somewhat clunky interface and does not use existing channels of social media to link musicians together. Rather, it has attempted to start up a whole new online community. The management section of this site covers a lot of the content Ban app will have - such as managing gigs, practices and availability. However these sections lack detail and are not available on a phone. Features: calendar set up to put in gig times and practices block in unavailability on the calendar have a database of songs on the app, then build a set list from it Finance, inventory and merch covered as well. Social element where bands can post videos, find new gigs, get discovered Splitgigs A website for musicians finding gigs, and for venues finding musicians. A great idea for those musicians who don t have a large enough repertoire to carry a show alone, this app allows them to literally split a gig between them. This social element would be helpful for Ban customers who find gigs motivate them, but don t know where to find them. Unfortunately this site has too much detail which is overwhelming, especially on the artist and venue pages - I didn t know where to start! Features: opportunities to play are listed in a similar way to Facebook events pages has a calendar of masses of gigs which are happening throughout the year Has an artist section which is hard to navigate - not ordered in a particular way, it just looks like all the people who signed up to the site are sitting there. Better navigation needed to figure out what this part of the site is for and how I can find the artist I m looking for Page where you can find local venues looking for bands. Again not organised very well. upload gig posters so venues can promote Bandlink A website with a focus on starting bands. Features: find musicians in your area if you re missing a musician you can run an online audition
Kompoz A website which allows users to collaborate with musicians across the world or across the street. With Kompoz, you can create songs with a bass player in Stockholm, a drummer in Nashville, and a guitar player in Kalamazoo. Features Musicians record their idea with any music software on their computer upload the track to Kompoz and invite others to join in songs evolve online as different people add to it you can look at other people s collaborations too opportunities to get noticed - if your composition is popular Onsong An App that allows you to put together lead sheets and set lists for music, share it and set it up on your ipad or iphone to roll through while you practice. Band members could share these files and edit them so that all members see the changes A bit of a clunky navigation that looks a bit like an ipod music library (do I search artist, song, setlist or book?). A much simpler version of this would be needed for Band similar to ultimate guitar, except you can collect the songs, rather than reading them off the web or printing them out. Like a printed out sheet of music, you can scribble on it and make changes - good for collaboration
Customer goals. personal improvement. learnt music as a kid now time poor have no goals to aim for music falls by the wayside collaboration. in a band for fun hard to track of progress varying levels of commitment complicated to organise
zac stevens Chill out guys motivations love of music & self expression enjoyment of collaboration socialising with mates reward of gigs frustrations clashes of opinions between members differing expectations of band members unclear goals for the band songwriting takes a long time hard to keep track of where we re up to Personality Extrovert Sensing Thinking Judging Technology IT and Internet Introvert Intuition Feeling Perceiving goals Software Age 20 find gigs to work towards share ideas for original compositions improve technical ability have fun playing together Mobile apps Social networks Occupation Stat us Location Instrument barista in a relationship sydney guitar I love playing music because it s a way to express my emotions. But I don t think it should be a burden. If music was stressful, that would defeat the purpose. Bio Jack lives with his parents in Lindfield and works as a barista in Surry Hills 2 days a week. He also studies philosophy at Sydney uni during the week. Jack has been playing guitar since he was 15, when he took lessons at school for three years. Since then, he continued to pursue his love of music by covering artists and writing his own songs. Playing guitar alone and trying to sing isn t ideal, so Jack has teamed up with some mates to make music together. He likes that this gives him motivation to practice and also a sounding board for his songwriting. But he doesn t have heaps of time to put into this thing - its fun, but not top priority. Music Technical Creative Collaboration Practice
Tara Freeman Did you even open my email? Age 26 Occupation Stat us Location communications assistant single sydney motivations rewards of musical achievements loves performing on stage playing with others is funner for singers hanging out with friends is fun frustrations not everyone practices the songs to the same level its hard to keep track of what songs we know and how well we know them it can be hard to organise practices and she is usually the one to initiate sometimes has to sing songs she doesn t like goals keep track of progress so we can feel well prepared for gigs polish songs to performance standard work towards quality sets of music and a band identity Personality Extrovert Sensing Thinking Judging Technology IT and Internet Software Mobile apps Social networks Music Technical Introvert Intuition Feeling Perceiving Instrument vocals Bio Creative As a singer, you need to rely on the skills and commitment of other musicians to be able to perform - if you can t trust your band, performing and practicing can be an anxious task Tara lives in North Sydney with 3 other young worker women. She has been singing her whole life, performing on stage and alongside bands a couple of times before. With her busy job as a communications assistant at a local paper, she doesn t have a lot of time to practice and collaborate with musical friends - but she is still committed to being in a band and working towards small goals with the time they do have - mainly for the love of performing. Collaboration Practice
Tone Of Voice. Conversational Band is a person! This is an app for people, about fun things in life (namely, music & creativity), so we don t want to get too serious in our manner. To the point Musicians are busy people, they don t have time for nonsense. Trendy We are cool, but not trying too hard. We know music and all the lingo, but there is no need to show off. Positive In order to reach your targets, you might need some encouragement. This app will let you know when you re doing well. Firm but likeable A bit like Mary Poppins, this app is here to keep everyone in the band committed and on target, so if you dilly dally, you ll get notified!
Possible features. communicate with band members assign tasks upload sheet music suggest songs to cover approve songs to cover share original material discuss original material edit original material record simple demos keep all songs and music in an organised place create set lists rate songs in set lists track progress on each song track individual band members practice and progress alert band members when they re not practicing enough record availability for practices and gigs arrange practice times gig venues find bands bands connect with gig opportunities bands connect with other bands create practicing schedules leading up to gigs
minimal viable product. communicate with band members record availability for practices arrange practice times add songs to repertoire create set lists rate songs in set lists track progress on each song track individual band members practice and progress High Priority upload sheet music keep all songs and music in an organised place alert band members when they re not practicing enough Easy record simple demos hard assign tasks record availably for gigs share original material discuss original material edit original material gig venues find bands bands connect with gig opportunities bands connect with other bands to share gigs low Priority
User Flows : adding a song Log in Sign up Repertoire Practices Gigs Collaboration Songs Set Lists Songs listed in Alphabetical Order + New Song Upload from: Evernote OnSong Ultimate Guitar Add a comment Post Choose file in evernote and click ok Notification goes to band members
User Flows : update available times Log in Sign up Repertoire Practices Gigs Collaboration Scheduled practices Availability New Practice Add start date Add finish date Add time Add more dates Submit View Calendar with colour coded dates Notification goes to band members
User Flows : arrange a practice Log in Sign up Repertoire Practices Gigs Collaboration Scheduled practices Availability New Practice Calendar view - select a date Enter a time Enter a place Submit Confirm Reject Suggest change Notification goes to band members
Key Features : sign up Simple sign up requires only first name and email address from the user Band name is a unique way for each group to identify one another. If a band name is already in use the app will suggest another. When a second, third or fourth band member signs up, they can choose the existing band name and seek approval to join that group. Predictive text will provide that option in the Band Name form box. Instrument is just a means of categorizing who s role is whose and adding a personal touch to the app. In the future, this information could be used to send tips and promotions to users. https://live.uxpin.com/306b1932f0a4fef13f6c3aee6e7a13788eb23cad?_ga=1.135336505.903875452.1428919199#/pages/21308343
Key Features : home page Home page contains access to each band member s profile, which allows band members to check in on what each other have done during the week and keep accountable. Homepage also contains a link to information about the most recent practice and the next practice coming up. This the information band members are most likely to need up front, to organise their own practice time. https://live.uxpin.com/306b1932f0a4fef13f6c3aee6e7a13788eb23cad?_ga=1.135336505.903875452.1428919199#/pages/21308343
Key Features : sets & songs Songs are organised into an alphabetical library and can also be placed into set lists for ease of practice/particular gigs. A green/orange/red light is used on each song to identify the progress the whole band, or individual members has made. For accessibility this will need to be developed into an icon and colour, rather than a round light. On the song page, members can update how they re going with the song or practice (view the music). https://live.uxpin.com/306b1932f0a4fef13f6c3aee6e7a13788eb23cad?_ga=1.135336505.903875452.1428919199#/pages/21308343
Key Features : practices The practice landing page contains a summary of all upcoming practices and also the option to add a new one. Members can quickly RSVP on this page, or click on the practice to gain more details. Each practice page contains details about which songs to practice and the progress level of each song. https://live.uxpin.com/306b1932f0a4fef13f6c3aee6e7a13788eb23cad?_ga=1.135336505.903875452.1428919199#/pages/21308343
User testing. Task 1 Your name is Clare and you re in a band called The Smiths. Sign up to BandJoe and find your profile page. Task 2 You have a practice coming up find out where and when it is. Task 3 You re practicing the Song ABC for Brenda s Birthday Party. You re struggling with the song - log this progress in the app. Task 4 Schedule a new practice session for October 26th at 6:09pm.
User testing results. User #1 User #2 Task 1 Ghost text doesnt disappear when clicked on. Text in boxes is grey rather than black. Completed all other tasks succssfully. Task 2 Found practice details easily. Did not use front page shortcut, but instead used practice button in the bottom menu. Task 3 Got to the song page easily, but couldn t figure out how to log practice. Clicked practice now, expecting the app to record the practice or provide more options for logging progress. Thought drop down menu with log progress was a form and practice now submitted it. Task 4 Recalled how to do this task from an eariler page. Easily followed prompts to select songs. Task 1 Stumbled on ghost texts in the forms. Couldn t find a profile page - thought the photos on the front page were decorative, rather than links. Once he found the profile page he easily followed the prompt to nag josh. Task 2 Found page, understood content. Task 3 Found the song, but not via Brenda s party set list. Couldn t find the log progrss button at first - instead tried to click the names below because they look like buttons rather than a list. Task 4 Did this easily but suggested including the name of who created the practice.