Project date: Nov 2021 – Jan 2024
Role: UX Director, at Isadora Agency
Team: 2 Digital Producer | 1 Account Strategist | 2 Product Designers | 1 UX Researcher
Project Summary
In part one, we reviewed the background, goals, and efforts for the Music Royalties Portal project, where we conducted the initial discovery and research for the project from which we established our vision, problem statements, objectives, and key results.
The Challenge
The first section the client requested we start with was the Statement List and Export Manager. Our goal was to provide an engaging and easy-to-understand and use experience for the core section of the portal experience, where users can find a list of their statements, earnings, and ending balances, then export them for download.
Requirements & Planning
From our discovery, we had already established our problem statements, objectives, and key results. We also established that Artist personas also generally wanted to see high-level information while 3rd Party personas, such as label or business managers, needed more detailed information, and currently come to the portal to download statements to reconcile with your accounts.
We needed to design a solution that would meet the vision of the project, helping users find out how much royalties they have earned within a statement period and how much they would be paid.
Because of the complexity of music royalties, we dug into the data architecture to ensure we understood the information that needed to be displayed from the statements, and how the information is categorized.
We gathered requirements and understood the context of the experience, we drafted user activities, user tasks, and user stories, where we discussed and brainstormed various features to include and once we felt confident of where we were, we released the hound (our product designer Pawel)!
Designing the Solution
Pawel designed several wireframes iterations, with various features and UI ideas for the two different profiles. We discussed and reviewed internally before presenting to the client to see what did and didn’t stick. Once we were confident enough and it met the client’s approval, it was time to put a prototype in front of some users.
Artist View
First Usability Test
Goal: Discover how usable, findable, and useful the features and content of the redesigned Artist View Statement List and Export Manager experience.
Methodology: Moderated usability test conducted remotely with think-aloud protocol
Participants: 4 females, 2 males; 50/50 with familiarity with the current royalties portal and experience with royalties
Scenario: Imagine you’re an artist who released an album a few months ago. You’ve received a notification regarding a new statement and have logged into the Musician’s Royalties Portal. Find how much you have earned and will be paid in your latest statement.
Tasks
- Find Latest Statement
- Locate how much you’ve earned
- Locate how much you’ll be paid
- Determine how is the ending balance accounted
- Locate Previous Statement
- Save Filters
- Export Statement
- Save Export Settings
Findings
Overall, the redesign was successful in helping the majority of participants accomplish each task. The amount of information was not overwhelming and it was easy to find additional details with the Statement Preview feature. There were usability challenges with the filter and save filter UI and how to edit the save export settings. More importantly, financial royalty terminology was intimidating and unfamiliar participants did not understand what each meant.
3rd Party View
For the findings, we made updates to the 3rd Party View. Additionally, since this persona typically manages multiple artist, we designed some additional features to help this user filter, or organize their view.
Second Usability Test
Goal: Discover how usable, findable, and useful the features and content of the redesigned 3rd Party View Statement List and Export Manager experience, with the updated filter UI design and multiple artist listings.
Participants: 3 females; All with familiarity with the current royalties portal and experience with royalties
Scenario: Imagine you’re a manager artist for four artists. Tell me how much each of your artists have earned and will be paid or have been paid from their latest statements.
Tasks
- Identify the column and net dollar amount to be paid per artist
- Locate the artist’s previous statement
- Refine your results to (artist name) and period date (Update and find more filters)
- Customize filter order
- Create easy future access to these settings (Save filters)
- Recall saved filters
- Group list by artist
- Export multiple statements
Findings
Overall, the participants had a very easy time using the website and its features and noted that the functionality of the website was good and useful. The improved filter design and save filter design was successful and seen as a useful organizational tool when managing multiple artists. Group by artist toggle had low visibility and usability issues when bulk selecting between artists. Export Manager worked well overall with minor terminology issues.
The Outcome
After usability testing, we reviewed the feature readiness from a UX perspective with the client, discussing user value to help ensure it aligned with their business priorities, and discussing with them and their dev team what should be included in the MVP. Once we agreed on MVP, their dev team started their work while we continued with visual design and the design system work (case study coming soon).