The livestream App for Performance Artists Created by Performance Artists

DisPlay was created with live performance artists in mind. Featuring enhanced interactivity between performers and audiences this app recreates the live experience for artists and audiences alike. DisPlay truly brings the live performance experience to the virtual world.

Timeline: 10 weeks - April 2021 - June 2021
Role: UX/UI Designer
Client: BrainStation
Tools: Figma, Premiere Pro, InVision, Canva

How did this concept come to be?

Task:

I was tasked with identifying, planning, researching, and designing a digital mobile interaction that addressed a problem space of my choosing, using the tools and techniques of user experience design. This product was to create an enjoyable, usable, and useful digital product that helped people in their lives in a meaningful way.

Constraints:

Research took place during the covid-19 pandemic - therefore no in person interaction was permitted.
I was tasked to create a mobile interaction for an android device.
Project milestones had to be completed by certain due dates and no extensions were permitted.

Problem Space

Since I was tasked with identifying a problem space I wanted to tackle an issue that was close to my heart. I come from a family of performance artists and I am a performance artist myself and I have seen firsthand how the COVID-19 Pandemic had devastated the performance artists and the live performance industry. Therefore I identified my problem space as follows:

Due to the global Covid 19 pandemic, in-person live events have essentially been cancelled. This has negatively affected live performing artists and their livelihoods. Some artists have moved online using platforms such as Twitch and Zoom but these do not accurately recreate live events.

Objectives

After determining my problem space, goals and objectives I set out to determine my research methods. As I developed my research plan I needed to keep in mind that the world was currently in the middle of a pandemic, meaning I could not do in-person interviews or tests. I decided to conduct my tests and interviews over Zoom which or course had it's disadvantages in that I could not fully observe the body language of interviewees and user tests but it also had it's advantages in that I could interview people from various locations around the world.

Using a human-centred design approach I aimed to assess people’s needs, hopes and fears to uncover what is most desirable in a digital solution and then determine what is technically feasible and financially viable. I approached the process in three phases, to date only phase 1 and 2 have been completed.

PHASE 1 - Strategy & Discovery:

Discover, inspire, and choose new directions and opportunities. During this phase both qualitative and quantitative data were used to determine and inform the initial design.

The primary research in this phase was derived using qualitative data from participant interviews which would take place over Zoom.

The secondary research in this phase was derived from quantitative and qualitative data from journal articles, newspaper articles and statistics papers on the subject.

The information from this phase was used to create the initial prototype.

PHASE 2 - Prototype + Execution:

In this phase the completed product would be launched and the product performance would be measured against itself or it’s competition. This would be mainly quantitative by using benchmarking, online assessments, surveys and A/B testing.
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Secondary Research

I then began my research by investigating academic journals, recent news articles and statistics reports for quantitative and qualitative data. This what I found:
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In the US, the overall unemployment rate averaged 8.5 percent during the first quarter of COVID-19, 52 percent of actors, 55 percent of dancers and 27 percent of musicians were out of work
In 2017 the arts made up $877.8 billion of the US economy. This is five times larger than agriculture, and $265 billion larger than that of transportation and warehousing. (Guibert & Hyde, 2021)
Changes in consumer behaviour and severe unemployment have taken a devastating toll on the arts during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Guibert & Hyde, 2021)

In this same survey 85% agree that if they can’t perform live, they will have a difficult time making a living as a professional musician. (Coletto, 2020)
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, many arts organizations have moved content online for free to keep audiences engaged and satisfy the demand for cultural content. (TRAVKINA & SACCO, 2020)
While this is not sustainable over time, “it has opened the door to many future innovations.” (TRAVKINA & SACCO, 2020)

Hypothesis

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I believe creating an innovative online platform that reimagines the live event experience will alleviate livelihood concerns for artists and create an enjoyable experience for audiences in the absence of live events. I will know when I am right when 80% of artists who try the platform return to do another event and 70% of events begin hosting over 100 audience members.
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How Might We

I used this hypothesis to inform my How Might We Question. This is a statement that would keep this project on track and is something I could come back to in order to ensure the project goal and intent stays in focus.

How might we reimagine the virtual live performance experience for live performing artists in order to drive audience engagement?
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Primary Research

After creating my hypothesis I used my hypothesis and secondary research to inform my interview questions. Once those were created I went in search of interview subjects. I ended up interviewing 4 interview subjects who:

Key Findings

After interviews were conducted I synthesized my notes to determine the subjects Goals, Behaviours and Pain Points:

Goals:

"Nobody had any work, they weren’t eligible for CERB So they had to find work or make work.... they had to pivot and do something different with whatever they did."
"I miss being able to potentially change someone's outlook on what burlesque can be"
"I can thoroughly understand why some persons don't even want to go through the hassle of even trying to continue their career during this pandemic because there's no place that feels safe for them to do so anymore."
"it's just a really exciting, interesting time to see all this. This whole pandemic is laying the way for how this stuff is going to be for ever. I think there's gonna be a lot of cool things coming out in the next little while... it feels like we're in the infant stages of online interactiveness.”
"But there's just like more energy in the room when you're playing to a live audience. Like I love seeing a group of people out like having the time of their lives forgetting all their worries, that's what it's about."

Behaviours:

The way we interact with one another is going to change even after the pandemic is over
Offering live experiences online provides wider access so more people can watch and participate.
A huge loss due to the pandemic is connecting with audiences during and after the show.

"Performing live and performing online are so different. What people want is very different."
"Almost all of the performing arts that I have been a part of, since my time as a performer, there has been some sort of level of interactivity even if I don't actively interact with the audience with my body. It can be eye glances, it can be gesturing towards them."
"Art cannot be created in silence or in a vacuum specifically, it is just not how I prefer to work."
"It's been tough. It was very weird at first doing online readings. But then I realized more people have access to watching a live performance online."
"For me, in particular, the lack of tangible audience feedback and interaction is one of the biggest things that I have actively missed. And one of the reasons why I no longer perform live on a virtual show."

Pain Points:

"One way it impacted me was losing the whole community that I was really connected to"
"I lost a lot of motivation making art"
"It's just like this huge jumble of information (Twitch) it's really daunting. It's like I want to be involved in this platform but I have no idea what I'm doing.... just make it simpler.
" I haven't done stand up since before COVID happened. And I just feel like I just don't want to do that. There's a connection you need with the audience in the room."
"I miss being in a group of strangers, and you know, meeting people, shaking people's hands, people coming up to me after the show and being like, "Hey, man, you were funny", or, you know, like, "great job"."
"...no sense of anybody in power, actually, prioritizing the performing arts in a way that feels meaningful"
"Enormous grief that everyone who was experiencing... loss of their artwork loss of the opportunity to share their artwork it was debilitating for people."

Insights

These key findings were then further synthesized into insights which were then to be used to inform the design of the product.

Persona

Experience Map

Using the persona and the information I learned during the interviews I put together this experience map in order to pin point opportunities for intervention:

User Stories

In order to determine the main task and functionality of the product I engaged in a brainstorm process of user stories. This enabled me to empathize with my main user (Performance Artists) and determine a core epic and task for my prototype:

After this exploration I determined that Interactivity and Networking was my core epic and focus for my prototype.

Task Flow Diagram

After the core epic and task was determined I created a task flow diagram which would be the basis of how the prototype will function.

Initial Prototype

The first step in creating the initial prototype was so sketch some ideas down on paper:

Then I created the initial grey scale wireframes and interactive prototype using Figma:

User Testing

Round 1:

The first round of user tests took place May 19th, 2021 via zoom. The test subjects were located in either Edmonton or Vancouver, there were 5 test subjects in total. The purpose of the test was to evaluate the effectiveness of a the Display app. Overall the users enjoyed the app, found it very user-friendly, fast and easy to use. They enjoyed the animations and small touches/attention to detail that made the app unique.

Round 2:

The first round of user tests took place May 20th, 2021 via zoom. The test subjects were located in various places in North America, there were 5 test subjects in total. Overall the users enjoyed the app and how the copy in the app reflected the audience in a really meaningful way. They thought this app would be useful, successful and that there could be a good market for this app. People suggested they liked the hierarchy, spacing, buttons and text size.

The second round of users tests revealed opportunities for improvement as follows:
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Visual Identity

Now that the application was tested it was time to create the visual identity of the application. I started this by creating a moodboard that capture the look and feel of the application and brand:

I then developed a UI inspiration board in order to give the application shape and structure:

This all lead up too...

The hi-fidelity prototype!

Marketing Website

In on order to promote the unique interactive abilities of the application I created a marketing website to promote the product. The marketing website focuses on how this app is focused on catering to live performance artists and advertises the heightened interactivity that the app offers between artist and audience.

I chose to create the website in a "dark mode" version of the brand in order to better showcase the app (as the current colours of the app are light) as well as to test out how a "dark mode" feature would resonate with audiences.

DisPlay Website

I envision this application to be translated to a website that could be accessed through laptops and desktops. This is imperative for this product to scale as live performance artist would be able to have enhanced control over how they are presented during a livestream. A website that could be accessed through a laptop would enable additional and better quality camera and sound equipment to be used during live stream.

Design Impact

As we ease out of the COVID-19 pandemic there is no doubt that how we interact with each other and society will change. Interactive virtual experiences will begin to become more of a norm and possibilities for how live performances are created and showcased will expand. The impact of DisPlay is apparent in that it is a tool that could shape the future of live performances. I envision this app shifting and chnaging with the times and adapting to what is current. I see performance artists using this tool as a way to diversify engagement with their audiences even when they are back performing in person in front of a live audiences. As one of the project interviewees said:

"it's just a really exciting, interesting time to see all this. This whole pandemic is laying the way for how this stuff is going to be for ever. I think there's gonna be a lot of cool things coming out in the next little while... it feels like we're in the infant stages of online interactiveness.”