Week 3: Match.com

DP Answers

Last class we had a presentation about our answers and what we have been working on for the past two weeks. My original question seemed to focus too much on music sharing and not enough about educating about cultures. The presentation basically summed up what I was aiming for and what I am now aiming for. Therefore my new question is:

"How can graphic design advocate for music discover through interactions between users from around the world?"

I don't want to remake Pandora, Grooveshark, or any other radio music station. I want to create an app that connects cultures and allows users to teach one another about their country through different methods using music somewhere in there. Since the presentation, classmates have responded positively towards the pen pal idea and that one on one interaction. Of course, this concept would have to be flushed out more.

A big question was asked about how matches work. This is what I'm still working on. So far, I'm thinking based on demographics (age, location, etc.), musical interest, and even general interests like school topics and stuff like that. Another point made was "what if they were connected with someone with completely different taste". I think that's a great idea and it would be nice to provide the users the option to choose to be connected with someone they have similar taste in or someone with completely different aesthetics. My elevator pitch for this project is now "match.com meets pandora". I don't know how professionals will understand it but it seems to sum it up well (hence the picture below).

Kidwell has also been kind enough to share this website called sampletheculture.com. It's quite a cool website and it is similar to what I've been thinking. It's more of a "I went to this place and here is what I did". Granted, there are some music on there and there's some really cool design but it seems like a showing off of what one person did (even if there are four of them) to the world instead of a personal sharing (which is what I want).

Another thing we had to work on for this week was creating our own schedule. In my design career, I always focus a lot on the background information and research (like I can never do enough of it). So for this project, I really want to focus on the formal aspect so I'm only researching for another week and then after that, I'm focusing on wireframes and designing. I'm thinking of making this into another MX project towards the end and how I will present it (animation style). The schedule can change since there's a ton of room for designing but we shall see.

Based on the schedule, next week is all about research and really defining my audience and understanding what they look for in this app.