SHAREMUSIC
Project Overview
A startup media company is creating an app that currently offers a freemium plan for users. My goal is to implement ways to get users to convert from freemium to premium plans. I will explore and understand how to create opportunities for current and new users to subscribe to premium plans.
My Contributions
I worked throughout the entire phase of the product’s development cycle which includes user research, mockups, prototyping, and user testing.
Tools used: Figma, Canva
Discovery Phase
The Problem
With the ShareMusic app, the problem is trying to convert freemium users to the premium subscription plan. How can we get users to subscribe to premium and what can they get out of it? The difficulty here is finding effective ways to create opportunities for users to sign up for the premium plan.
Findings
I found, through user interviews and qualitative research, that most users prefer free plans, because they are, after all, free. The only times they convert to paid premium plans is when there is a family plan involved or the plan offers great benefits (skipping songs, no ads, etc) or if there is social value in the premium plan.
Including a social component within an app can encourage users to remain engaged and prevent them from feeling excluded by missing out on the app's social features. He also found that users typically upgrade to those plans if the costs and benefits outweigh the free plan.
Secondary Research
My initial approach was to conduct secondary research to gain deeper insights into the user sign-up process for streaming services. This involved exploring online resources such as academic papers and studies. Mantymaki's research on "What drives subscribing to premium in freemium services" revealed that users are typically driven to subscribe to or maintain a premium plan for three key reasons:
1. Ubiquity
2. Discovering and Exploring New Music
3. Social Connectivity
I also reviewed studies conducted by Thomas Wagner, Alexander Benlian, and Thomas Hess. Their findings indicated that the most effective approach to convert users to premium plans was to offer limited features within the freemium plan. By limiting what users can do, users will start to consider the benefits a premium plan can provide them. Another study conducted by Thomas Wagner and Thomas Hess found that by offering a free plan for a limited amount of time, users will have no choice but to sign up for the premium plan. What this does is, it gives users a taste of what the product is about and if they like it, they can pay to use it. Over all, there were two conclusions that resulted in these two studies:
1. Offer limited features in freemium plans
2. Provide a time-limited, all-access trial of the app prior to sign-up
User Interviews
I conducted user interviews with five participants and synthesized the data into an affinity map to identify key themes for the ShareMusic app. The majority of users were on the premium plan through a family plan that allowed for multiple users. When asked if they would have considered the premium subscription if a family plan was not available, most responded negatively, citing a reluctance to pay extra and alternative sources for music. When asked about their use of other music streaming services, most mentioned Spotify.
Users reported discovering information about the premium plan through various sources, including the website's homepage, app pop-ups, and recommendations from friends or family. Based on these findings, I have synthesized my research into the following affinity map.
HOW MIGHT WE?
Based on my research, I developed three questions to understand the problem of my users:
1. How might we effectively persuade users to use premium subscriptions on the media app?
2. How might we get users to upgrade from freemium to premium?
3. How might we improve the way users sign up for subscriptions?
Design Phase
Solution
After conducting research and user interviews, I discovered that adding a premium advertisement section to the login/sign up page would effectively inform users about the availability of a paid plan and its benefits. Furthermore, the app's home screen has a premium content section that can only be accessed by registered users. When users click on this section, they are directed to sign up. Additionally, every other song played on the app will be a premium feature that requires users to sign up for access. This approach prevents overwhelming users with excessive prompts to sign up for the premium plan while still allowing them to use the freemium plan with some restrictions.
To gain a clear understanding of the screens required and the visual progression of the app, I developed a site map. This visualization proved helpful in ensuring that I maintained the app design's organization in mind.
Sitemap
The user flow pictured below begins at the onboarding screen and displays the process of how a premium plan ad would work.
User Flow
Sketches
Wireframes
After creating the sitemaps and user flows, I was ready to create mockups of the app. Below is the wireframe I designed to get the visual look of the app. After creating this wireframe, there were definitely improvements that can be made such as:
1. Adding a premium plan ad during sign up phase
2. Improving the look of the premium subscription settings
Low Fidelity Design
I conducted user testing on my wireframe with 5 participants ranging from 23-28 years of age. I found that most feedback was positive except for a few key issues that were discovered during user testing.
At what stage will users see the premium plan screen
The premium subscriptions settings page is not as aesthetically nice. It was “too plain” or “too much empty space”
Friends page - should it be their name or their usernames that they added during account creation
How would users play music and what would that look like
User Testing
Hi Fi Screens
Final Design
Further iterations will be performed to eliminate or reduce any user issues on the app. There was a suggestion that was brought up during user testing that I would like to to continue further research on.
Find a way to showcase friends utilizing various features of the app, such as sharing music and communicating with others.
Next Steps
Throughout the entire process from ideation, user research, design, and iteration, I found that I had the most difficulty in the discovery phase and deciding which UX method would be best to use. There are so many options that I could select from but I had to consider what would be the best for this project. Overall, I enjoyed adding my creativity and design thinking to this project and learned that there’s many parts to consider when designing the music app.
