MyMix - an Apple Music Experience
The current music listening experience is straightforward: users have libraries, create playlists, and share them. Seeking to enhance Apple Music, I envisioned MyMix to seamlessly integrate visuals and experiences, elevating the listening journey.
MyMix reimagines Apple Music, offering a fresh approach to accessing, organizing, and curating music.
Issue — Through user interviews, I discovered that playlist creation varies widely, with users crafting lists based on emotions and events, often with song overlap. Users seek an adaptable music experience.
Target User — MyMix caters to music aficionados who view playlist curation as an art form, spanning casual listeners to enthusiasts of all ages, ready to tailor their music to life's evolving rhythms.
01
The Process
Initially a brand exercise, this project evolved into a comprehensive concept for Apple Music, revolutionizing both how users listen to and curate music. My aim was to provide deeper personalization beyond the current offerings.
My solution, MyMix, visualizes user playlists using audio cassettes, colors, and emojis, departing from the standard list view. It integrates seamlessly with Apple Music's ecosystem, offering users the freedom to personalize their music curation.
MyMix enhances Apple Music by granting users unparalleled flexibility in their music listening experience. With mood-based mixes, users can effortlessly adapt to any situation, listening to multiple mixes simultaneously if desired. The incorporation of emojis allows users to express themselves freely in labeling their playlists.
Additionally, MyMix introduces a groundbreaking feature: users can generate mixes simply by typing emojis that reflect their mood or situation. This innovative approach empowers users to handpick their mixes or let Apple Music curate one based on their mood.
Current
Proposed
02
The Solution
Onboarding + Mixtape Creation
Demonstrating the flow for how users access the app from Apple Music and how they make their way through onboarding and creating their mixtapes. Users have the ability to create mixtapes using emojis, colors, and labels. Special attention was given to the components used to ensure an experience that didn’t feel foreign.
Developing Your Mixtape
Having created your mixtapes, the next flow shows how music can then be added to populate each mixtape. Music can be added from your own library, existing playlists, or simply by searching for music.
Home + Play Functionality
After all mixtapes have been created and all the music has been added, this flow shows what users can expect to see whenever they visit MyMix. From here, users can select one or more mixtapes to play simultaneously. After selecting them, the “Now Playing” screen incorporates colors from the selected mixtapes. As mixtapes are added or removed, the color changes accordingly.
MyMix Adaptability
One of the value propositions of conceptualizing MyMix was that users wanted an easy way to adapt their music listening experience to match their everyday dynamic lifestyle. By seamlessly incorporating an experience to allow users to do that, users are ready to switch up their mixes whenever the situation arises.
Haptic Touch
Staying within the Apple design system wasn’t limited to just visuals and components. Wanting to have MyMix blend seamlessly into Apple Music meant taking advantage of Apple Music’s native capabilities. This flow demonstrates how haptic touch can be used by users to add songs to their mixtapes very easily.
I Made You a Mixtape
Built into MyMix is the sharing capabilities for friends to create and share mixtapes with each other. This flow demonstrates a user receiving a notification that a friend created and shared a mixtape with them. On the flip side, sharing mixtapes is just as easy to do. Using familiar interactions and visuals, users will be able to jump right in.
“I’m Feeling Kind of 💔❤️🩹😭😢😡⛈️”
Another feature users can take advantage of is the ability to have Apple Music generate a mix for them based on emojis typed by the user. Sometimes words aren’t enough to describe a feeling, so emojis can be used to fill that gap. Users have the ability to audit the music and save the generated mix to their library.
Mixtape Remixes
If users find themselves frequently playing the same combination of mixes over and over again, they have the ability to select mixes and create a remix. What that means is MyMix will gather the songs that are shared between those different mixes and allow the user to create an entirely new mix based on those songs. That then allows the user to have an additional mix at their disposal if the need ever arises.
03
Future Considerations
Having gone through conceptualizing different flows and experiences, one thing that sticks out very clearly is that part of the flow that could definitely be improved upon is the mixtape creation process. In order for users to effectively use MyMix the way it is intended to be used, a tedious creation process presents itself to users. There’s a type of people who love creating playlists and will spend hours perfecting them. MyMix lands right up their alley. For users who don’t want to spend hours, there should be a way for them to use it just as effectively. A majority of the creation process is manual, so there can be an introduction of a type of automation. Through constant and frequent use of Apple Music, it can pick up on users' listening habits and begin to suggest mixtapes for them to simply look through and add to their library.
Apple Music can analyze the order in which songs are played in a given time frame and if there’s a specific trend that appears (super upbeat songs, sad songs, hype songs, etc.), Apple Music can suggest mixtapes to match those trends.
Expanding it past the user, Apple Music has the opportunity to use these mixtapes to help artists push new music out and help people discover new music. From a publicity standpoint, spotlights can be given to different artists where they share out their own mixtapes for listeners to explore.