Tunear Streaming Service

Tunear is a streaming service that focuses on connecting independent artists with their local community through song exposure and live-show promotion.

Product Type

Mobile First App

Role

End To End Designer

Mobile phone screen displaying a music app with a purple header reading 'Discover Local Talent' and options to explore local music communities and support independent artists. The app shows featured artists The Midnight Owls and Luna Beats, and trending local music Neon Dreams by The Midnight Owls.
Music streaming app with

Tools Used

Figma, Figjam,

Figmake

Duration

5 Weeks

Prototype Link

Problem

In the modern age of music streaming often independent upcoming artists can get lost in a swamp of sponsored and trending music. They can be disconnected from the very communities that they are living in and miss out on potential support and connection.

Solution

I created a product that focuses on connecting independent artists with their local communities. The streaming service utilizes gps locating to curate listening experiences for users and promote artists based on the communities that they are a part of.

Conducting Research

The first step for creating the Tunear streaming service was to conduct market and user research in order to define the product.

Step 1/4: Competitive Analysis

Goals:

Identify key features and best practices used by current products that align with the goals that I am trying to achieve.

Key Insights

  • Bandcamp is the most comparable service to my proposed platform

  • Ticket and merchandise sales help drive engagement and artist profits

  • Playlist creation and sharing is a favorite feature for top streaming services

  • Independent artists are often underrepresented on top streaming services

Comparison chart of music streaming platforms: Spotify, Tidal, and BandCamp, showing their user interfaces, features, and target audiences.

Step 2/4: User Interviews

Goals:

  1. Understand expectations and needs of users

  2. Determine user personas

  3. Prioritize key features for this product

Key Insights

  • Both local artists and their listeners are looking to establish strong connections with one another

  • Common sentiment suggests that top streaming services don’t prioritize their artists

  • Listeners sometimes struggle to find the music of the local artists in their communities

A research document titled 'Interview Guide' for a streaming service platform called Tunear, including the name Dylan Sage, date February 3, 2026, and mentions seven participants. The document contains introductory text about a research interview for a streaming service focused on local and independent artists.
Document titled 'Tunear Local Artist Streaming Service Interview Debriefs' listing 7 participants and 20 questions, with sections on interview participants, goals, and method.

Step 3/4: Affinity Map

Goals:

  1. Identify patterns and key themes

  2. Determine pain points and HMW’s

Key Insights

  • The product is desirable to artists and listeners filling in an empty space of independent focused streaming

  • GPS Location based music scenes are a key selling point

  • Fans want to know what smaller local artists are up to

  • Exposure, promotion and sales all benefit the artist

  • Listeners find the connection to their musical community to be valuable and worthwhile

A large digital affinity map titled 'Indify Streaming Service' with various colored sticky notes organized into columns, each representing different themes or categories related to streaming services.

Step 4/4: User Personas

Goals:

  1. Define target audience and users needs

  2. Identify the scope of my product

  3. Prioritize features of the product and hierarchy of problems to solve

User Personas

  1. Casual Listeners

  2. Devoted Fans

  3. Local Musicians

Three user personas profiles for a music platform: Jean, a casual listener from Asheville, NC; Alex, a devoted fan from Los Angeles, CA; Meghan, a local musician from Los Angeles, CA. Each profile includes age, location, goals, frustrations, and motivations.

Additional Methods of User Research

  1. Research Plan

  2. Business + User Goals

Designing The Product

After completing my product research and analyzing the data I began to design the UI for Tunear.

Design Vision

The visual direction for this product is aimed at invoking a sense of nostalgia and style.

I wanted to provide that cool classic music store feeling while also maintaining a modern look.

Color and Typography

Step 1/7: Style Tile

The design for this product was heavily inspired by the Ultimate Guitar Tabs app. I aimed to create an accessible and stylish design that evoked the cool feeling of being at a music store with a touch of modern aesthetic.

The name of the product changed in the very last minute of this project as well as the logo and color scheme. These changes are not reflected in the style tile here but are reflected in the screenshots provided.

Design template with sections on music event branding, including a crowd at a concert, a collection of vintage radios, a person with a vinyl record in a record store, and a shelf of vinyl records, alongside color palette and typography guidelines.

Step 2/7: User Flow and Site Map

In order to map out the navigation and flow of my product I created user flows and a Site Map. These flows were strongly based off of best design practices used in the top streaming services.

Due to time constraints I focused primarily on the Site-Map to create my layout as well as a single user flow to help produce key pages.

Flowchart titled 'Indify User Flow' outlining steps for exploring local artists, viewing profiles, browsing music and merchandise, selecting and purchasing songs, tickets, and merchandise, and completing checkout, with a smaller section detailing landing page, system decision, and user action.
A digital site map diagram with a flowchart layout. The diagram is titled 'Indify SiteMap' and features various sections including Explore, Collection, Shows, Radio, Artist Sign Up, and Cart, each with their own subsections and respective descriptions, interconnected with lines showing navigation pathways.

Step 3/7: Low-Fidelity Wireframes

After referencing best practices and patterns from similar products I began to mock up digital sketches.

Products referenced include

  1. Spotify

  2. Pandora

  3. Bandcamp

  4. Tidal

  5. Apple Music

Flowchart diagram illustrating the layout and features of a music app, including sections for Home, Home extended, Explore, Shows Page, Collection Page, and Radio Page, with descriptive annotations about each section's purpose and navigation.

Step 4/7: Mid to High-Fidelity Wireframes

Screenshots of a mobile music app interface, showing sections for discovering local talent, exploring music, and upcoming shows. The screens display featured artists, trending music, top artists, genres, and nearby live performances.

I applied the color scheme and fonts to my design to create mid / high fidelity wireframes showcasing all necessary information and stylistic choices.

Step 5/7: Prototyping and User Testing

Flow diagram illustrating the user journey through a music app, starting from setting a location, discovering local talent, exploring music artists, viewing upcoming shows, creating playlists, and adding music to their collection.

Next I created clickable prototypes to be used for user testing in order to gather useful feedback and insights.

User Testing

Goals:

  1. Determine the functionality and overall usability of the Tunear project

  2. Uncover any possible improvements

  3. Create a plan for priority revisions

Key Insights

  • The overall navigation of the product is easy to understand

  • Users were able to complete their tasks in a short amount of time with no errors

  • Users felt as though the design of the product was recognizable while also being unique

Document titled 'Tunear' with 'High-Fidelity Testing Plan' subtitle, includes overview with task and participant counts, and lists three tasks related to setting location, creating playlists, and searching songs, with section headers like 'Tasks' and 'Listeners'.
Document titled "Usability testing results" dated February 19, 2026, with an overview about Tunear, a streaming service for local artists, and user testing goals.

Step 6/7: Priority Revisions

Comparison of mobile app interface designs showing revisions for a music playlist app, including updated add button position and language. Screens display different versions side by side with labels indicating new and old versions, highlighting changes in interface layout and features.

Once I gathered feedback from user testing and prototyping I iterated upon my designs by implementing and testing suggested improvements.

Revisions included and were not limited to:

  1. Updating the placement of playlist add button

  2. Adjusted language used for key actions

  3. Resizing action buttons to match overall aesthetic of the product

  4. Change of secondary color to purple for higher accessibility

Step 7/7: Highest Fidelity

After conducting user testing and applying priority revisions I arrived to the highest current fidelity of the Tunear product.

Mobile app screens for discovering local music talent. The first screen prompts users to set their location with a dark background and a map. The second screen shows a dark theme interface with a 'Discover Local Talent' header, a purple 'Set Location' button, and profiles of featured artists like Luna Beats. The third screen is similar, with a confirmed location in Los Angeles, CA, and displays featured artists, trending local artists, and a navigation menu at the bottom.

Additional Methods used for Product Design

  1. Mood Board

  2. Feature Set

  3. UI Kit

User and mentor feedback was heavily considered and implemented throughout the process of designing each version of the wireframes.

Version Timeline

Sequence of four mobile app screens showing a music discovery app called 'Discover Local Talent'; the first screen is a wireframe, the second has a dark theme with a yellow 'Set Location' button, the third has an image background with the same button and featured artists, and the fourth shows a similar design with a purple theme and navigation bar at the bottom.

Next Steps and Lessons Learned

Next Steps

  • Continue to conduct user testing and priority revisions as updates are implemented.

  • Flesh out the Artist experience to a more fully functional product

Lessons Learned / Reflections

  • Looking back I feel like I made the jump from low-fidelity to mid / high fidelity very quickly. I was confident in my choices but feel more exploration could have occurred in the early stages.

  • The project I chose to take on had a very large scope compared to the timeframe I was given leaving me in a constant state of consolidation and prioritization.

This product was created for the DesignLab UX/UI course. It showcases an in-depth understanding of various user research methods as well as proficiency in user interface practices.