Proof of Concepts

To communicate an early design concept of the idea for an advanced music discovery tool, the proof of concept method was used to create a user interface (UI) design mock-up of the main screen and an interactive prototype of how the music results can be browsed to make a choice.

To evaluate how useful these proof of concepts would be for filmmakers, a usability testing session was conducted with a filmmaker.

UI design mock-up

The mock-up consists of three sections:

• Prompt section to provide input about what kind of music is needed. This section was inspired by the free text search feature from the Cyanite AI tool.

• Filters section to further fine-tune the music search request. This section was inspired by the keywords search feature from the Cyanite AI tool.

• Music results section to display the search results. This section was inspired by the choice overload findings from the previous Innovations Exploration phase. The music results can be browsed by selecting Yes or No and then a new suggestion will appear until the filmmaker is satisfied or there are no more results. In the latter case, the tool will start suggesting alternative music.

This mock-up was created to show how these sections would be incorporated into a UI:

User requirements for improving royalty-free music platforms

Note: The search by audio feature from the Cyanite AI tool was added as an input possibility later during the Realisation phase.

Interactive prototype

After that, an interactive prototype of the music results section was created to show how the Yes/No interaction would work based on the following imaginative scenario:

Below you can experience the interactive prototype. To complete the above scenario, select No on the first song suggestion, Yes on the second song suggestion and Yes on the third song suggestion.

These two proof of concepts allowed to envision the idea of the advanced music discovery tool and show a more tangible representation of it to others. They were useful to have a discussion with a filmmaker during a usability testing session.

Usability test

The usability test focused on gathering first impression about such a tool since it is (assumingly) different than any existing tools for music discovery (e.g. royalty-free music platforms). Questions were asked about interacting with a prompt to describe the music request, selecting moods from the filters and exploring the music results as Yes/No choices. The filmmaker was asked to think aloud on these questions which was followed by a discussion with the goal to identify as many problems as possible so they could be addressed during the next phase.

The following main insights were derived from the test for each of the sections:

• Prompt section: Interacting with the prompt is what makes this tool different from others. However, it would be beneficial for the users to have some guidance or explanation about how they can write a good prompt.

• Filters section: The design of the filters in the fine-tune section is minimalistic which can be good but it does not feel as being suitable design choice for such a tool that would be used by professional filmmakers. The tester pointed out that it would be better if more filter options are added into this section to give more control over the music results.

• Music results section: The gamified selection of the music results with Yes/No can be nice for an alternative way of making choices. However, the main way to choose results should be the standard list view of music results as it would feel more professional. Therefore, both options could be added into the UI and the users can select which one they want to use.

Furthermore, it was discussed with the filmmaker that such a concept would work only if there is a big and diverse enough database to give results from. Otherwise, the music results would be repetitive and the concept would not be that good. This insight was later used as an advice to the client so that it is clear that if this concept would be realised as a product, a big and diverse music database would be needed.

These insights from the usability testing session were considered as enough and therefore more testing was not needed at this point. They were used later in this phase for researching what kind of guidance the tool can offer to filmmakers regarding the way they write their prompts. Moreover, these insights were used later during the Realisation phase.

After creating proof of concepts in the form of a design mock-up and interactive prototype of the music results section, important usability issues were discovered from a test with a filmmaker. This helped to know how to improve the concept further from the software side.