Guerrilla research in an agile environment
8Stem is an app for iPhone that blends the sophistication of professional music editing tools with an accessible interface. The company’s model takes a new look at traditional notions of copyright and authorship. Guerilla usability testing fit the agile development methodology of the company by providing cost-effective and rapid feedback from actual users. I facilitated and recorded 25 user tests that yielded rich data, and I was able to gather insights that influenced future versions of the product.
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My Role: UX Research Intern
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Conducted guerilla usability tests in specific city locations to reach target users and analyzed recordings
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Facilitated semi-structured user interviews and analyzed transcripts for meaningful quotes
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Created journey maps reflecting the experiences of research participants
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Created data-driven personas to use as internal tools for making design decisions
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Presented data to stakeholders to influence design decisions and a pivot in strategy
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The Team
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Co-Founder: Bruce Pavitt, Record Producer
Co-Founder & Developer: Adam Farish, Tonebirds CEO
UX Director: Phillip Van Rooyen, CXO Founder
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Research Goals
User Groups
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Gather data about the users to compare to stakeholder's assumptions and clearly define tiers of users​
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Personas​​
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Create iterative personas based on research data to guide design decisions
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Key Feature
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Get rapid feedback on the remixer feature to assess its value, pain points, and users' mental models of it
Research & Design
Guerilla Usability Testing | User Interviews | Personas
Key insights
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Retention
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8Stem is highly engaging with great potential for retention. 8Stem gives anybody the option to engage with music in a process-driven yet creative way, and the resulting experience is captivating and individualized. In fact, several users spent more than 20 minutes doing one user test and most were engaged for at least 10 minutes.
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Key Feature
The second key finding addresses one of the main goals of research. Reactions to the remixer itself were negative or neutral at best. Users had the most questions when faced with the remixer, they looked unhappy, and they made discouraged comments such as “this has a high learning curve”.
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Pain Points
The third key finding is that the remixer radio and activity features were the least intuitive to users. Most users did not have a clear understanding of the flow, labeling, or icons at this point, but reactions were not negative.
Personas
Two tiers of personas were created; superfans and aspiring producers/artist. The tiers emerged based on analysis of app analytics and user interviews. Four final iterations of personas were developed over the course of this project.
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Recommendations
​As a result of the research, it was recommended to pivot away from the focus on the remixer and move towards becoming a niche streaming service.
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The recommendation was based on two main ideas. First, the remixer proved to be too complicated for broader audiences yet too simple for aspiring producers and remixers.
Secondly, instead of continuing to face the challenges that come with working in an undefined user space, 8Stem could move to where there are existing and defined user groups. The team implemented a slimmed-down version of the remixer in 2017. In this version of the app, the full remixer was available but hidden in “pro mode” for those who wished to access it.
