Play music that's always right for you

Beats Music was a music streaming service.
It launched in 2014 in the U.S and was later acquired by Apple.

Problem

How can we expand the Beats ecosystem and create a streaming music service to rival Spotify, Rdio and Pandora?

Solution

We designed the mobile and tablet apps for Beats Music, as well as the branding, identity and marketing campaign to launch the service.

I lead the UX design of the tablet app.

Key insight

80% of all tablet use takes place in the home

Source: Digital Strategy Consulting

We used this insight to change the focus of the tablet app. We wanted users to simply open the app and hit play.

Design

The tablet app had its own design challenges, most notably, more screen real estate and two device orientations.

I worked closely with a Visual designer to create a design framework for the interface. We then developed this and detailed all the user journeys and interactions. 

Tablet app demo

The service combined curation and algorithms to learn from user’s behaviour.

D&AD Awards video — created by R/GA

Results

Curation worked and Beats Music did really well.

50% of music played came from expert playlists.

70% of listeners streamed songs for the first time via curated features.

Apple acquired Beats Electronics and launched Apple Music in June 2015.

Credits

Agency — R/GA
Executive Creative Director — James Temple
Creative Director — Lucio Rufo
Project Management — Claudio Bellanga, Leen Verburgh
User Experience — Scott Shaw, Mehul Hirani
Visual Design — Rob Northam, Jose Sebastian, Daniel Nieuwenhuizen
Technical development — Niall McCormack