As a music lover, Musescore.com website is the largest free sheet music catalog with more than 1 million works in different genres: from classics to contemporary pop music. However, a significant number of users express frustration with the site's navigation and search functionality. Users frequently find themselves engaged in a tedious process of keyword refinement, hoping to filter their way through the sea of options to find the specific piece that aligns with their musical cravings or requirements.
Over the span of two months, I redesigned the site so that users can find sheet music and courses they need with intuition.
Before diving into ideating the new experience, I asked myself:
"Who do we see as our biggest competitors?"
"Who are our primary users?"
"What are users' frustrations?"
"What challenges would they face when moving forward?"
"What functions do users use the most?"
"What do our primary users need the most?"
To kickoff, I started out with heuristic evaluation since it helps uncover usability issues. I chose Jakob Nielsen's 10 Heuristics since it is a set of predefined usability principles and it provides an objective assessment. In order to understand which page needs more attention and how can the errors be removed content audit & Inventory were performed.
Having the evaluation results in mind, I sent out surveys to current and potential users. I received 17 responses and conducted a semi-structured interview with 5 users. Results revealed a sense of uncertainty when making decision and frustrating users' journeys.
Although the usability testing success rate is 84.4% among five users, but users spent a lot of time on the wrong path to attain the tasks they were assigned to.
After collecting the survey, users mentioned these three sites were the one they often used to search for their needs. The findings shown that the site can be improved by: discoverability of sheet music, refining search functionalities, and optimizing the website's overall navigation
I quickly coded the research findings and sorted them into themes with personas goals, pain points, and thoughts in mind:
What we purposed according to research summary
The site structure accommodates various user flows while providing comprehensive information for decision-making. To further define users’ actions, user flows was created for the top features that have been used to gain a better understanding of how users use the site.
The top three features to focus on: sheet music, lessons/courses, play and learn music through video/midi. Based on the research results, to solve the problems and gain engagement in the process, we need to let users find what they need without frustration.
Wireframing for A/B version testing.
The iterated version were designed based on the website aesthetic trend and the original theme color.
When designing the system, accessibility is confirmed that all colors passed WCAG 2.0 AA standards.
The outcomes of users finding sheet music online, listen to the midi, and download it from usability test 2.0...
After 5 iterations, users can now use search engine bar or through navigation bar to find the music sheets or courses they are interested in.
Iterations
Screens
Task completion rate
The improvement doesn't end here. Design is an iterative process, and as such, further research should be done iteratively to better understand the audience and keep improving the website
I gave my best during the design process and learned a ton:
Thank you for reading this case study! If you’re interested, feel free to check out my other projects below
