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GR2: Designs

Project: Pitch Perfect

Problem Statement (recap)

Singers in musical groups often find it difficult to perfect their individual parts in ensemble rehearsals.

They run into obstacles such as:

  • not being able to hear themselves among many other voices
  • not finding effective ways to practice alone outside of practice
  • not receiving individual feedback as vocal directors are usually only able to address groups of people

Scenario

Anna Denkrick constantly gets bombarded by compliments from her friends about how beautiful her voice sounds in karaoke, so feeling pretty good about herself, she joins an a cappella group at her school (about ten members).  After the first few rehearsals, Anna discovers that she shines when singing popular, modern songs that she's heard many times before, but unfortunately, her a cappella group just assigned her a solo in an arrangement of the Sign by Ace of Base, a song she's never heard before.  As a result, she has trouble hitting the right pitches and going at the correct rhythm.  Furthermore, since she doesn't have a good ear for the melody yet, she gets confused in sections where the accompaniment (all of the other parts) is vastly different from her part.

The vocal director has already spent a couple group rehearsals critiquing her solo, but their performance is only a week away and there are other things the director wants to work on.  Anna feels frustrated because she wants someone musically talented to listen to her sing and tell her exactly when she misses a pitch, but no one has time to help her.

Individual Designs

* Irene

Sketch

Comments

In this design, individual exercises are emphasized, and there are very few ways a user can interact with other members of their group - perfect for someone who just wants to work on the basics on their own.

This design is more social, with something similar to a giant Facebook wall for the group on the home page.  There are still exercises, but there is a greater emphasis placed on songs uploaded by the vocal director (the ones that the singer should be practicing).

These sketches are fun and cute but are meant for a mobile application.  Since we cannot expect people to spend too much time on their phones, the mobile version is just a collection of short vocal games that the singer can play.

* Jackie

Sketch

Comments

 

 

 

* Susan

Sketch

Comments

The first sketch is more meant for personal use, with little group interactions. There are tabs on the side for easy access to the different sections of the site. The user can practice a variety of singing exercises, and can also play and record songs that the vocal director has uploaded onto the site. The director can listen to the recordings and make comments.

This second design is focused more on social interactions among the group. The home page displays an activity feed with comments from the vocal director. There are no exercises on this site, but there is more focus on the singing section. Group members can highlight music sections on the sheet music and make comments to the user.

The second design has a member directory that lists times that users are free to meet outside of practice.

For the third design, I tried to make an extremely simplistic design that would fit well on phone screens or just small screens in general. The home page is a group of 4 icons. The exercises section has swipe-able exercises (Tone Exercises: A, B, C etc.). Recording section no longer shows the sheet music because of the small screen size but instead shows the voice amplitude.

Storyboard Designs

* Storyboard 1 - Exercise-Oriented Design

Sketch

Comments

This design emphasizes an exercise-oriented approach for singers to get better.  Notice that each page contains sketches of two different pages.

With this design, when Anna logs in, she can immediately see a note with her goals, as well as progress bars indicating what her highest scores in each of the exercise categories are.  

Since in this scenario, she wants to practice her solo in "The Sign", she navigates to that piece and is taken to a page with the sheet music and a sidebar listing all of her previous recordings.  She can either opt to have the web app play the music back to her so she can listen to it or make a new recording of her singing.  She can also edit the sheet music and the tempo of the playback.

On the sidebar, she notices that her vocal director has commented on one of her recordings and links her to a specific tone exercise.  Let's say she follows the link!

Once she clicks the link, she is brought to the page with that specific tone exercise, shown to the left.  She can see her last score, as well as a record of what happened during the last game she played.  

Once she feels that she has a good grasp of the exercise, she can click on the "Exercises" button on the menubar (or the back button next to the title of the tone exercise page) to see the general list of exercises.

* Storyboard 2 - Social-Oriented Design

Sketch

Comments

This design emphasizes a social-oriented approach for singers to get better.  Notice that each page contains sketches of two different images.

With this design, Anna logs in and is brought to a page with an announcement from the vocal director as well as a news feed containing comments and activity from the other members of the group.  The sidebar contains a list of "hot" recordings made by her peers, recordings that any group member can comment on.

Although all of that is interesting, Anna decides to check her inbox, since her director said she sent everyone song pages with their individual parts.

Once Anna gets to the song page, she notices that her director has highlighted a particularly tricky few bars and left a comment.  She begins practicing, playing the song back a couple of times, and then creating a recording, which she marks public so she can get feedback.

The next day, Anna's fellow a cappella singer Amy comments on the intro of Anna's recording, mentioning that they should practice harmonizing together there.  

To find Amy's availability, Anna goes to the members directory.

Here, at the members directory, Anna can see that Amy is free on Monday and Wednesdays at 3pm, and she can send Amy a private message suggesting a meet-up time.  In case she forgot, she can also see that Amy sings the Harmony 1 part for the song they want to practice.

* Storyboard 3 - Practice-Oriented Design

Sketch

Comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

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