Practica
An app designed to help young music students learn productive practice habits, helping bridge the resource gap in musical competitions.
Role
UX/UI Designer
Team
Individual Project
Tools
Figma, Miro, Google Meet
Responsibilities
UX/UI Design
Branding
Time Frame
80 hours
Background
Everything is bigger in Texas. Including music. In Texas, choir is a SPORT. Enter, the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) All State Choir process, or as I like to call it:
THE CHOIR HUNGER GAMES
70,000 singers start, and 200 finish at the very top. And just like the hunger games, Texas is broken down into areas, regions, and of course Districts. Some kids come from District 1, I used to call them “the careers” or, the “4 year all staters”. It’s wonderful to teach in district 1’s. There are 300+ kids in these choir programs that have been in choir for 9 years with 3 directors, private lesson teachers, and money. It is part of the culture to make the All State choir and represent your school in glory. It is wonderful and several of these kids get exalted experiences and opportunities for success through both luck and hard work.
The Problem
Then there was my district… where half my singers had never been in choir before, or a music class. We competed in a region where like in the Hunger Games, had kids from Districts 1-12. The odds were not in our favor!
I let my kids know that. We worked hard. We both burned the candle at both ends to basically prepare for collegiate level auditions in a month. Even if some of them never opened a score before. (That little baritone made it to level 3 of 4.)
How do we bridge the gap and provide a tool for students that don’t have unlimited resources?
The Solution
The real solution is change the entire education system because it’s working the way it was designed. It was not made to include marginalized people. It works for the ideal, and there is always the persevering student that makes it from District 12. We have our Katniss Everdeen’s in the “urban schools”. And we must always celebrate them.
But how do we actually help the kids that are there now?
Outside of providing them free all state camps, world class teachers, private instructors. Perhaps a tool or a guide may work?
Young musicians need resources, guidance and coaching.
I came up with a tool that can help alleviate teachers from being stretched too thin, and help guide kids to practice while they’re away from their teacher.
practica, in short
HOW DID WE GET HERE?!
🔎
discover
user interviews
competitive analysis
secondary research
📜
define
persona
storyboarding
feature roadmap
📐
develop
user flows
sketches
wireframes
hi-fi prototype
📬
deliver
usability testing
results analysis
iterations
DISCOVER 🔎
Research goals
Understand the ways teachers and students gain success in the All-State Process
Understand the roadblocks that students and teachers run into during the all-state process.
Understand successful students’ practice/learning habits and tools (both good and bad)
Understand low-achieving students’ practice/learning habits and tools. (both good and bad)
Understand what motivates and demotivates students to practice.
User Interviews
There were 4 interviewees.
Each interviewee is now a teacher and has been involved in the all state process in a range of districts and resources
Each interviewee competed in the all-state process and was an all-state choir member or advanced.
They were asked to speak on their experience teaching students, competing when they were students, and the all-state process as a whole.
Users said:
“👨 It’s not appropriate repertoire for a young singer. The average student is not prepared for success. This process can take years.”
“🧑🏻 I had a lot of anxiety because I knew regardless of how much i prepared it was left up to chance. ”
“👩🏻 I had to hire people to help, because I am alone. I couldn’t devote all the time the kids needed for my mental health.”
“👩🏽 I had voice teachers when I was competing. I would basically just use practice tracks forever. I’d go into a practice room, use a track, and struggle.”
Competitive Analysis
I looked into other music competitors in order to see what was out there to help students practice better.
I found: Andante Music App - MyTractice - Music Practice App - SmartMusic
Most common features among the apps:
Practice log
Practice journal, writing
Practice reflection/mood tracker
Progress tracker
Teacher assignments
Communication feature
Community, leaderboards
Feedback, either against a program or to share for feedback.
Accompaniments
Library of repertoire
Some struggles I found in the apps:
They seem like they would be engaging at first, but their UI is clunky and out of date.
It seems like they’re just a bunch of tools that aren’t unified in their branding or outsource their accompaniments to youtube.
Some of the nicer apps like Andanta are only available for iOS.
Smart music is EXPENSIVE $13.99 per student (at bulk) and $39.99 for each teacher. If a program has 120+ students, it adds up. It’s also not available on a phone.
All apps are heavily focused on instrumental music.
My research tells me to create a product on mobile that is more accessible by students.
There are lot of practice journals, but no guided practice to help students during practice.
This app will help with the specific all-state music, but can be expanded to help more students later.
Findings
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Breakdown and goals
Breakdown of the overall goal. The different levels of process. Helping kids and teachers take it step at a time. Perhaps create a “user journey map” for the students that shows them where they are and where they’re going. VISUALLY.
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Create guided practice.
Breakdown of the music. Create smaller checklists of what the kids need each day or week. Allow kids/teachers to set the goals and rearrange the order as needed.
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Create an environment of support
Allow students to share recordings with their teachers or with their friends for feedback and encouragement.
Define 📜
Persona
Elias’ person will help guide me as I think through his needs and how I may help him.
Storyboarding
I tried to think “What would happen to Elias if he tried attacking the music on his own?” “Okay, so now what if he had Practica?” What’s the dream?
Elias struggling.
Elias getting some guidance!
Feature Road Map
Based off all the research I was able to prioritize the following features.
Develop 📐
User Task Flows
With the user in my head, I was able to develop the following flows.
How Elias can enter his information and sign up in Practica to get his practice guides in the right order.
How Elias will use the guide practices and go from each segment of the music learning process.
Sketches
After thinking of the flows I made some quick sketches of what screens Elias would expect to see.
Practica onboarding
Home screen options
Practica scheduling
Practice guide screens
Wireframes
Once screen were sketched, I transitioned to mid-fi wireframes.
Onboarding wireframes
Home screen and start of practice guide
Practice guide with a reflection point
End of practice guide with a chance to record for feedback from teacher
Story, branding, color 🖼️
I want something that is light and clear for students to keep calm and focused.
Deliver 📬
User testing
I was able to get 4 user testers to test the product. We tested remotely through Zoom and a screen-share of the wireframe. Each test took about 45 minutes.
Usability testers were asked to:
Setup an account with their all-state details
Setup a practice schedule
Describe the home screen
Do a guided practice.
Throughout teach task they were asked for their opinions on layout, their expectations, and if they felt anything was missing or off about their tasks.
Results analysis
I laid out all my notes in an affinity diagram categorizing the notes into wins, confusion, ideas that were brought up during testing, and possible next steps.
Testing insights organized and categorized by priority and effort required.
Iterations
There were a few major changes that came up from the user testing.
Adding a search function to plug in all-state details. Most kids don’t know this information. We will instead let kids search for the info through their school. Hopefully they know their school.
The scheduling section was confusing for a lot of the users. It was adjusted for clarity and order.
In the practice guide, there was a section at the beginning for score marking. This was problematic for the user tester and they commented how it would just overwhelm their students. This was section was removed and students will instead be asked if they completed their prep work before moving to the active practice guide. If they didn’t do their markings, it would guide them to a markings information section.
Homepage and details before….
Avoiding the fact that many students don’t know their region, we changed the flow to have student search and confirm their school.
PROTOTYPE
Next steps
The next steps.
Continue adding new sections to the prototype, there were so many great insights from the user testers of the wireframe.
Test it with students. See how they feel! Get even more insights from them.
I had a lot of positive feedback of how this could be helpful for all students. It’s time TMEA moved to the 21s century. Helping the underrepresented helps everyone.
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More about me?
Details below.
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