I’ve been booking concerts/shows featuring local bands for a couple of years now. After realizing that it is sometimes difficult to stay connected with the local music scene, my friends and I shared the idea of starting our own label. This label, or for better words-collective, would represent local music artists and help music supporters more easily get connected to the music scene. There are currently very disorganized outlets for this, such as a group on facebook called “NJ DIY”. I have often searched for local concerts using this group, only to find myself confused and wishing there was something easier to understand. This app could bring everything together into a social media outlet to connect musicians with supporters in order to have more of a presence and include other very necessary elements (discussed below).
The target person for my app would be a young music lover or musician. (the age could potentially vary) The app would initially have a welcome page with a title that has something to do with local music (have not figured out a title/logo yet), a small “about” section, and a sign up button. The sign up selection will take you to a basic profile creation page that asks for a specific location- whether you are a music lover or a musician/band. Once the user selects their state, they will be able to view a selection of categories. The categories (in a hamburger type of tool) would include: artists, calendar, forum, live, & feed. The artists section would be an “encyclopedia” of local artists names and information. To be a part of this encyclopedia, bands would have to sign up on the simple portfolio screen. This band profile could potentially list everything from just info on the bands, to their tour dates, to merch. The calendar would list dates of local shows coming up with locations. People could input these when they are aware of shows coming up. These specific events could be laid out similar to a facebook event page with a graphic, info, times, and comment section. The forum would be intended for discussing upcoming shows, musicians hoping to borrow/use equipment, connecting singers with guitar players/bands, connecting volunteers with promoters, etc. The photo/feed and live sections are categories that I’m not completely sure about implementing yet. The photo/feed section could have a similar layout to instagram that displays photos from previous events on the calendar. The live section would be a live broadcast (similar to periscope) of events listed on the calendar, that anyone can post on. All of these categories are interactive and can be inputted by musicians or fans.
I’ve always wanted to work in the music industry while combining my love of digital media and creative work. This app would be a great platform to present my skills, as well as include many different creative platforms that I enjoy. I believe that future employers, as well as local music supporters would love my app idea. I have pitched the idea to coworkers in the industry before and they seem to be excited by the plans and almost confused that it didn’t already exist. The local music community is looking for something like this, just as I was and could use it for their convenience. There are only a few apps similar to this, such as bandsintown, that don’t include nearly as much interaction, such as the forum, and ability to update listings as mine.
To make my project come to life, I’m going to need to do a ton of researching, surveying, and communicating with people who are experienced in app design and development. I don’t have very much experience in this, besides UXD, but am going to spend this and next semester using Lynda and other online services to acquire the knowledge possible to create this thing! For specific prototypes, I will start with drawing up and then wire-framing my categories pages. Stylistically, after selecting your location, a hamburger tool will appear with the categories listed above. My prototype will show what happens when each category is selected and what screen shows up. I will create wireframes and designs using the program: sketch (or whatever I feel works the best). Hopefully next time I can start drawing up some of my ideas.
At first I had a similar reaction to the one you mentioned in your post, “confused that it didn’t already exist.” I also thought of bandsintown or songkick and wondered how your idea is different. I think a significant point of distinction is that (if I’m reading things correctly) your app is focused on bands from local area that primarily play in the area, and isn’t so much concerned with out-of-town touring bands. Your app is really about cultivating and promoting the local scene.
I think you’re right to interview/survey the people who would be the end users of your app to get a firm grasp on what would be valuable to them.
In terms of actually building it? If you’re already relatively comfortable with building web sites (HTML, CSS, Javascript) you might want to consider something like PhoneGap/Cordova that allows you to develop things as web site and at the end package it as a mobile app: https://www.phonegap.com
A step beyond that might be to dig into React:
https://facebook.github.io/react-native/
You already compared your vision of the app to Facebook. React is an open-source Javascript framework created and used by Facebook, and you can use it to build native mobile apps. There’s a collection of courses tailored to this on Lynda:
https://www.lynda.com/learning-paths/Web/become-a-react-developer
From reading your blog posts, I can tell this project is really in line with your interests, both professional and personal, and I think that’s great!
I see that your app will be focused local musicians and bands, which is what sets it apart from the others, but I think you can expand this further. How will this be different from apps/ services that already exist? Maybe there’s some new way of connecting musicians with their fans, something interactive that requires the use of this app, and makes your target audience want to keep using it. The first thing that came to mind was adding a gamification element to it. Aside from having your artist encyclopedia, profiles, and show dates, maybe there are contests or ways to earn “points” that unlock special meet and greets, secret shows, or merch prizes. Perhaps users have to use the app to “check in” at shows- the more shows you attend, the more chances you have to win. Going off your live photo feed, there could be photo contests, or challenges (take a photo, tag it, share it, etc.) These contests could be created by the musicians/bands as an effort to grow their fan base. Just a thought, hopefully it sparks more ideas!
You seem to have a lot of connections, so I would definitely talk to bands and fellow concert goers to create your user personas. That way you can narrow down on what aspects of your app would be useful or not.
As for building this app, I feel like we have similar experience levels. I am also more experienced in the UX/UI aspect of things, but know very little about the development side. You’re right though, there are several tutorials and courses you can take to learn the basics and make a functioning app. It’s always a good skill to learn. I personally like Adobe XD for making mockups, and you can preview your designs and interactions on an actual device. Invision is another good alternative. I feel like the geolocation aspect of the app is a big part of it, so maybe focus a lot of your research on how to implement that. I remember Kuiphoff introduced PubNub in one of his classes for location based apps, so I would talk to him. Maybe he knows of a better solution.