riff

Let musicians understand their finance easier

Overview

Riff is a virtual career management platform that aims to help musicians improve their careers to achieve their long-term goals with data-driven analysis.

In this group project, I worked with two UX designers, Kat and Ben, the founder Harrison, and the product manager Demi.

Role

UX/UI Designer, mainly designing user interview questions, creating competitor/ heuristic analysis, empathy mapping, design/content strategy, UI elements, and Hifi prototype

Timeline

April 2022 ~ May 2022 (4 weeks)

Tools

Figma, Adobe Photoshop/Illustration

Problem

Musicians often have difficulty with their finance, because they often have to wear lots of hats simultaneously, such as being their own social media manager, production manager, or even their custom designers.

Goal

Design a financial tool platform based on the user story and needs to solve the lack of financial literacy among musicians

Approach

Working with stakeholders creating a content system strategy based on user interviews, designing user flow, wireframe, low-fi and high-fi prototype, and conducting 5 usability tests

Outcome

A Hi-fi prototype of MVP featurees with 3 major iterations based on 5 usability tests and client request

Design Strategy

Treat musicians like babies in the financial world

In one of the user interviews, I remembered one of the interviewees, musician Doni B, saying, "please treat us like babies, using easy language, just like spoon-feeding me the financial knowledge."

So I conducted this design strategy based on this interview. In our design, we will keep our language and UI design as simple as possible, add an explanatory text for every single action and financial terms, and create a stress-free platform for musicians to understand the content without difficulty.

Three main design strategies are Simple, Explanatory, and Stress-free.

Simple

We aimed for a simple design, and changed from a scrolled page to a one-page one, because we believe that will create a smoother user experience when they compare and comfortably find the information they are unfamiliar with.

And we also used those UX design tactics for the minimalism:

Avoid using intensive colors
Summarised users' financial health in Financial Score

Explanatory

We mentioned "Treat our users like babies" in our design strategy. So we added an explanation as some of the information is quite esoteric. The icons opening the overlays were positioned subtly, yet were easy to find. On the other hand, we also collected insights such as red flags and recommended actions (right sidebar) based on data from the user's bank. So musicians will understand why this action/red flag is essential and further process the required actions to align with the business goal, helping musicians better finance their bank accounts.

Stress-free

We provided step by step tutorial to guide musicians using the riff platform. It not only provides a stress-free environment for the users, but also brings up the audience's curiosity by blacking out the section, instead of a blank financial platform.

Final Prototype

Final thoughts

Pivot is now my favorite word!

As the first real-world project collaborating with designers, I am SO PROUD! I learned from three perspectives: teamwork, design, and time management.

Teamwork

Figure out what people are good at and what they want to learn, taking opportunities to learn from others
A quick 5-10 mins catch up with teams will benefit the team spirit and motivation

Design

Understanding our own project is easy, but may not be for others. Ask for fresh eyes if I am stuck
Auto layout (Learned from Ben!)
Enjoy the pivot! and try to not have too much emotional attachment to the first design

Time management