Waypoint
Guiding your health and wellness, one song at a time
Waypoint is a music-streaming wellness app created as part of Universal Music Group’s 5 week Digital Innovation Challenge
Role
UI/UX Design, User Research, Prototyping, Persona Development, User Flows, Market Analysis
Timeline
5 weeks, Nov 2020
Tools
Adobe XD, Photoshop,
Miro, Monday
Team
Allison Lu
Joshua Kim
Samantha Mutuc
Josephine Aidoo
Ani Hovsepian
Isaiah Minor
The Problem
Our challenge was to design, develop, and build a consumer app that includes streaming music and user-generated videos, fitness, wellness, dance, or gaming. We had five weeks to design an app prototype and develop a business strategy in a pitch-style competition.
Maintaining mental health and wellbeing has never been easy, and in the midst of a global pandemic, the challenge has never been greater.
What We Did
Prototyping, Design & Development
User Flows, Journey Mapping, & Persona Crafting
Go-to-Market Strategy
The Process
White Space, Ideating, &
UX Research
We saw an opportunity in the medical sector, as a few of us on the team had medicine-related backgrounds. We wanted to provide our services to people worldwide especially with the existing circumstances of the pandemic. Looking back to our experiences as college students this year, we found that our on-campus experience had been greatly affected by the pandemic.
To learn more about the problem space, we conducted short interviews with current college students, and found that there were many opportunities there, leading us to journey map the process to better understand the motivations, pain points, and emotions of users.
Market Analysis
People love utilizing music streaming and behavioral apps, curating playlists, and following influencers or attending professional fitness courses. There are so many existing apps, but we thought, why isn’t there an app that encompasses everything?
Waypoint works in the intersection of the four areas of music streaming, behavioral, playlists, and professional platforms. As for the business aspect, we had to decide whether we wanted to go for a B2B approach, or B2C, and identified potential competitors including Calm, Headspace, Spotify, and Clubhouse.
Wireframing, Low-fidelity Sketches, Storyboarding
A typical college student studies with his friends at school, keeping each other accountable by keeping each other on task and taking breaks when needed. However, COVID-19 suddenly hits and he becomes alone at home, and his work ethic and mental health is greatly affected. He turns to a music streaming and messaging app, by joining a “study themed room” to connect with his friends while he studies.
Persona
We decided to narrow down our target user to college students, specifically Jane. As an extrovert, Jane loves to hang out with her friends to take the stress off of school.
However, ever since COVID-19 hit, Jane has been studying alone in her room all day because of quarantine. Her loneliness is causing her to become anxious and depressed on top of her normal stresses. Jane is an example of how countless people, like you and me, were affected by the pandemic this year.
While searching for a way to support people on their health journey during this time, we wondered…
How might we virtually facilitate safe spaces for physical and mental health by using curated musical content and providing professional resources?
The Solution – Waypoint
Built specifically for the user’s wellness in mind.
Centered on creating a personalized experience for each unique user, Waypoint generates music playlists that are curated with the user’s goal in mind and how the user is feeling at the moment. Music is a big part of our everyday lives, but everyone has different tastes in music.
Our mission is to support users on their health and wellness journey through personalized music content and professional guidance in the comfort of their home.
Waypoint combines music streaming and wellness, taking the experience to the next level by utilizing AI in music to personalize each user’s experience. To further enhance this experience, Waypoint brings users together in virtual groups led by professionals to foster encouraging environments. Besides professionals, artists and influencers can also partner with Waypoint to promote their new music and provide safe spaces for their fans through community groups.
With Waypoint, support and wellness is just a tap away.
Welcome Page
Log In
Create and account or log in.
Link your desired music streaming service, such as Spotify or Apple Music, so Waypoint can pull information about your current listening habits.
Home
Choose how you are feeling at the moment, the mood to achieve, favorite artist/genre, and similar songs, to allow Waypoint curate the best playlist to help you achieve your desired mood.
Generate Playlist
Waypoint will generate a playlist based on your selections. When pausing the session, Waypoint will provide you with relevant resources.
End Session
When ending the listening session, Waypoint will ask you how the session was, and based on your selection, will utilize AI to learn to suit your needs!
Waypoint Communities
Waypoint communities consists of rooms hosted by professionals, artists, and influencers, meant to provide safe spaces for users to interact with each other and receive professional resources. Each room is centered around a different topic, such as meditation, fitness, etc.
Instructor Sessions
Chat with the instructor and other participants through each room, view the instructor’s profile, and rate the session at the end.
Profile / Payment
View your account information, recent sessions, favorited instructors, and upgrade easily to the premium plan.
Final Thoughts
I was extremely excited about this project, since I was able to work in the intersection of all my interests in music, design, business, and technology. I also learned how to implement Spotify and Apple Music players and utilize UMG’s API database.
Since our group had quite a few people, we divided into design, business, and technology teams within our group. Although I worked on mostly the UX design portion, I was able to learn how to incorporate business, strategy, and marketing into our idea to promote it to our desired audience and expand our app in the long-run. One of the biggest takeaways I had from this project is definitely learning that design and business can’t stand alone, but intersect and support each other. We were able to make better design decisions supported by our market research in order to make our app sustainable in the long-run.
p.s. – an interesting article that we came across after finishing the project!