SoundCloud For Artists - end to end design process
Design strategy, implementation, and iteration on a revolutionary creator services platform for musicians.
Role: Lead Product Designer
Problem
Musicians (and creatives in general) are typically design focused, and have strong expectations for how products should look and feel. On the other hand, many music distribution platforms have historically been built with little focus on user experience, leading to a clear misalignment between the tools intended to support artists and the needs of the artists themselves. SoundCloud identified this gap as a strategic opportunity and pivoted its core business to better serve artists through a more intuitive, design-driven experience.
Provide musicians with an artist management platform designed specifically for the creative archetype, that allows them to manage and grow their career.
P0 Discovery - Setting the foundation
Objective: How might we redesign and build an exceptional creator experience on top of the newly acquired Repost software?
As with most projects, I tend to start with an audit of existing information architecture in order to understand what information I currently have access to, and what information I still need to obtain. This was especially important as we were designing on top of Repost (SoundClouds newly acquired distribution software), so I wanted to learn as much as possible about its technical capabilities.
As a part of my discovery I:
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Conducted interviews with engineers, product managers, and key stakeholders.
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Obtained pre-existing technical documentation about Repost.
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Determined and set up the documents I needed to maintain (Figma, Wikis, PRDs, etc.).
Key takeaways
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SoundCloud was pivoting their core business model to focus on creator services, meaning that this platform would become the next phase of SoundClouds growth.
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Future priorities outside of P0 included a native mobile app, as well as full integration between SoundCloud and Repost.
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Engineers claimed that repost was built on a sturdy technical foundation, but completely lacked design functionality in the form of Information architecture and data visualization.
P0 - Internal design audit
Through my initial discovery, I was able to identify key pieces of information that I still needed to acquire. I started by conducting an end to end design audit of repost in order to further understand the state that it was in immediately following the acquisition. This included an end to end flow diagram of Repost as well as a feature analysis which I would eventually use in the competitor analysis.
Repost end to end flow
My assessment of the Repost platform in its current state surfaced a few obvious problems:
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Instead of being greeted by a dashboard, creators encountered a hybrid home page/navigation menu which not only was a dated user experience, but also left creators with too many choices as to actions they should take within the platform.
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The interface was lacking easy access to data and information that would help advance a creators career
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Although the UI was lacking a cohesive look and feel, it did function properly, and provided multiple complex and beneficial tools and features that would greatly benefit creators.
P0 - Competitive analysis
I next wanted to understand how the Repost platform stacked up against our competitors. The competitors I decided to analyze had to fit into one or multiple categories:
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Strongly recommended through stakeholder interviews as industry leads when it came to creator tools, DIY distro, artist services, label services, or record labels.
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Contained a modern UI, and ideall strong mobile platform.
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Were direct or indirect competitors (ex. YouTube, Spotify, Twitch, etc.)
Competitor flow diagrams
I started by creating flow diagrams for each of our closest competitors.
In order to further compare information that surfaced through the initial analysis, and demonstrate SoundClouds positioning within the distribution space, I created a side by side competitor comparison that also featured the pros and cons of each platform:
Two distributors clearly stood out (Amuse and United Masters) as both showing more maturity, and were therefore deemed as our closest competitors for the following reasons:
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They had exceptional stand alone mobile apps which I discovered was an emerging trend within the distribution space and was also a top business objective following P0.
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They had dashboards that were clearly designed for the artist archetype, containing key analytics pertaining to a creators career that was easily accessible and digestible.
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They had highly functional and useful tools that guided creators through not only their initial distribution journey, but also the steps thereafter that would further help their career.
I conducted a pricing analysis in order to further demonstrate our positioning and to assist our finance teams in their analysis
A gap in the market I noticed amongst our competitors was that they didn't properly guide creators through the distribution journey (and the steps thereafter) that would help further their career. I described these findings and additional takeaways in the competitive analysis synthesis:
P0 - Research
The competitive analysis combined with product and business objectives assisted our User Experience Researcher in answering the following question:
What are creators looking for in an end to end platform that manages their career before and after the distribution stage?
More specifically, we wanted to accomplish the following goals:
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Understanding more about the artists current pain points and habits pertaining to distribution.
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Learn more about our creators story and drive in order to build empathy with their journey.
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Watch creators complete simple distribution tasks in order to understand how they interact with specific features within a distribution platform.
Once research was completed, it was shared with the rest of our team in the form of a research synthesis deck. This round of research surfaced three main elements that would greatly influence my designs:
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Creators gravitate to platforms that give them a sense of ownership over their career, and allow them to feel a sense of growth as they continuously return to the platform.
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Creators expressed a hierarchy of the most important data and features that they wanted quick access to through the dashboard.
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Creators wanted to very easily digest high level data regarding their music, but have the option to dive into this data should they need more information.
P0 - Design
Wireframes
I had gathered enough sufficient product objectives and user research to confidently begin designing lo-fidelity wireframes. I started by listing out the core goals and principals that I wanted to reflect in my designs:
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A clean and spacious UI so that creators could easily interpret data.
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Data and features that follow the hierarchy reflected through user research.
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Mobile responsiveness with the goal of creating a web app (that would eventually become a stand-alone native app).
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Seamless integration of sub apps, or features that exist outside of the dashboard.
I made a few key design decisions based on data, user research, and my own expertise and familiarity with the industry:
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I placed the most compelling and volatile piece of data at the top of the dashboard In order to entice creators to continuously return to the platform.
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I decided to design the dashboard in a modular structure based on hierarchy feedback in order to not only cleanly present data, but also allow for easy mobile responsiveness.
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Our most important business objective was for creators to distribute their content, with the desire to have them monetize content as a close second, so I made both of these actions easily accessible.
I wanted to run further user tests in order to understand creators preferences pertaining to analytics and revenue data visualization, and additionally validate design decisions I made regarding the overall hierarchy and modular UI.
Data visualization variations for user testing
User testing and open surveys validated many of the design decisions that were made, allowing me to begin the UI phase.
Key P0 UI screens
P1 Strategy - Merging platforms
Objective: How might we unify two distinct platforms in order to design one cohesive artist management experience that drives the pivot towards SoundClouds new business model?
Once we had designed and shipped the P0 version of Repost, it was now time to merge this platform with the pre-existing upload platform on SoundCloud. SoundClouds future business model aimed to have creators seamlessly distribute content simultaneously to SoundCloud as well as to other streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music, TikTok, etc.) with one cohesive flow. In order to understand the information being shared between these two platforms, I began doing an audit of metadata in order to further organize IA and assist our technical teams:
Metadata organization
P1 Research
Simultaneously whilst creating the design strategy and scope for our P1 objectives, our research team was working to further understand creators distribution goals and tendencies.
What does the end to end journey look like for Creators wanting to share their music on both SoundCloud and other streaming services?
More specifically, we wanted to accomplish the following goals:
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Understanding the various types of uploads and how they may differ between settings and preferences.
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Learn about the order of operations that creators take depending on their upload preferences and overall goals for a release.
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Learn about the terms and language that creators use to describe specific actions throughout their upload process.
Once again, this research was shared with the rest of our team in the form of a research synthesis deck. Three main elements surfaced through this round of research that would influence my designs:
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Users required strong trust signals in the form of clear terminology, especially when using new tools or features.
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Unclear outcomes caused hesitation and errors, as users needed confidence in how their choices would impact the final result.
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Users balanced speed with accuracy during high-intent actions, with extra steps or unclear decisions leading to hesitation and drop-off.
I put together an end to end flow to further demonstrate the lifecycle of a creators journey in order to help our team visually understand this journey:
P1 Design
I put together three variations of flow diagrams that took into consideration the prior research findings as well as my knowledge of the P1 product objectives.
The difference between these flows was based on when the merging of the two platforms was introduced into the upload process. This ranged from asking creators if they would like to distribute to SoundCloud as well as to other streaming platforms as the first step, in the middle of the flow, or as a last step. Once all three options were validated as feasible by key stakeholders they were ready to prototype for user testing. It was clear following these tests that the 'early intention' flow performed the best for the following reasons:
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Many creators felt caught off guard when given the option to make a crucial decision towards the end of the flow.
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Creators felt the order of operations made more sense from a narrative perspective, and was more in alignment with their distribution funnel preferences.
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The early intention flow was also one that creators were more familiar with, both on SoundCloud and through the standard distribution process.
Now that the correct distribution flow had been prototyped, tested, and validated, I began designing the UI:
P1 Results
The product exceeded KPIs and received the following positive feedback shortly after launching out of beta:
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Transformed SoundCloud for Artists into a primary revenue driver, contributing an estimated 35–40% of total platform revenue by Q1 2024.
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Increased distribution and monetization performance, driving a 6% lift in successful releases and an estimated 12–15% increase in artist earnings through improved onboarding and flow completion.
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Boosted ongoing engagement and retention, resulting in a 25–30% increase in daily return visits as artists more frequently checked performance and analytics.