Harmony
A UX case study connecting artists and A&Rs through swipe-based discovery.
Role
UX/UI Designer
timeline
April 2025 – May 2025
Harmony is a matching app for the music industry that connects artists, producers, managers, A&Rs, and songwriters in one place. Instead of relying on crowded inboxes or slow networking, users can swipe through profiles based on genre, style, or experience to quickly find relevant talent.
Each match opens up opportunities for direct chat, demo sharing, and potential collaborations, making it easier for both emerging and established talent to be discovered. By focusing on simplicity and accessibility, Harmony aims to democratize the discovery process and reduce the barriers between artists and A&Rs.
Uncovering challenges in artist discovery and ghosting
Current challenge: Talent disappearing in inbox chaos
During my initial research, it became clear that the current discovery flow is messy, unstructured, and inefficient. A&R spend valuable time sifting through inboxes, while artists often feel like their efforts go nowhere. As Ugur, an A&R I interviewed, explained:
“We get so many messages it’s impossible to listen to everything.” – Ugur, A&R
Artists share the same frustration. Victoria Grace, an artist who took part in Idol, told me:
“It feels like sending music into a black hole — you never know if anyone listens.” – Victoria Grace, Artist
These conversations highlighted the emotional side of the problem: artists feel invisible, and A&R feel exhausted by volume.
Exploring User Needs and Challenges
User interviews revealed pain points on both sides of the discovery process, while competitor analysis highlighted gaps in existing platforms.
To understand both sides of the discovery process, I combined user interviews with a competitor analysis.
I interviewed five participants: two A&R and three artists.
Ugur (A&R) explained how inboxes quickly become overwhelming:
“We get so many messages it’s impossible to listen to everything.”Victoria Grace (artist, Idol) described the frustration of sending music without knowing if it’s ever heard:
“It feels like sending music into a black hole — you never know if anyone listens.”The other participants echoed the same pattern: A&R lack time, and artists lack visibility.
Alongside interviews, I studied platforms to see how discovery is handled elsewhere:
SoundCloud → good for sharing, but unstructured for scouting.
LinkedIn → professional credibility, but not built for creatives.
Tinder → swipe interaction showed potential for quick yes/no decisions.
This research gave me a balanced perspective: both the human struggles (from interviews) and the digital landscape (from competitors).
User Research: Key Findings
To validate my assumptions, I conducted a poll with 10 respondents. The results highlighted several important pain points and opportunities:
Discovery is difficult → 60% had never tried finding a producer/artist/A&R online, while those who did often struggled with visibility.
Platform preferences → TikTok (30%) and Spotify (40%) were the most common discovery tools, showing that music and social media are tightly connected.
Lack of feedback → 60% felt that their music/messages often went unanswered, making them feel ignored.
What users value most → Simplicity (40%) and serious connections (40%) were considered most important in a music-matching service.
Strong demand → 90% said they would absolutely use an app that simplifies artist–A&R connections.
Finding the Gaps in Today’s Platforms
Market research
I analyzed platforms such as LinkedIn, SoundBetter, and music forums. The findings showed that the current market is fragmented, time-consuming, and often leaves new talent invisible.
This gap created the opportunity for a more focused and accessible solution.
SoundCloud provided reach and easy sharing, but lacked structure for A&R to filter and scout effectively.
Tinder’s swipe model showed how fast decision-making could feel intuitive, hinting at potential for simplifying music discovery.
LinkedIn offered credibility and networking value, but its professional focus didn’t meet the creative needs of artists and A&R.
This research confirmed a clear insight: while artists need visibility and recognition, A&Rs need clarity and efficiency. Harmony was envisioned as the bridge between these two sides, combining discovery with usability.
By analyzing the collected feedback, I identified recurring problems and grouped them into clear themes.
The analysis revealed three key challenges:
Artists feel invisible – Many artists expressed frustration about sharing music without receiving feedback.
Discovery is unstructured – A&R struggle with overflowing inboxes, making it difficult to filter talent efficiently.
A&R need faster filtering – Current tools force them to rely on quick signals like tags or bios, often leading to missed opportunities.
This process turned raw feedback into actionable insights, highlighting the gap between artists seeking visibility and A&Rs needing clarity and efficiency.
Experience Mapping: Artist vs A&R Journeys
mapped out the journey of both artists and A&Rs to visualize their pain points and emotions.
Artists go through hopeful but insecure uploads, anxious waiting, and frustrated manual sharing.
A&Rs face overwhelming inboxes, stressful skimming of submissions, and uncertainty when choosing talent.
This mapping highlighted the emotional friction on both sides and guided me to design Harmony as a bridge — creating smoother, clearer, and more rewarding experiences.
Behavior Types: Understanding Key Users
Through my research, I identified two distinct behavior types.
The Curious Artist seeks recognition and is eager to share work, open to feedback, and often experimental. Their main need is a platform to truly be seen and heard.
The Goal-Oriented A&R values efficiency and clarity, quickly scanning bios, tags, and demos to filter talent. Their need is for tools that help them find and save talent fast.
This distinction helped me design features that balance discovery for artists with efficiency for A&Rs.
Research Summary
My research revealed a clear gap: artists want visibility and recognition, while A&Rs need efficiency and clarity.
By combining market research, user research, thematic analysis, and experience mapping, I was able to define the core design challenge: bridging discovery and efficiency.
This insight became the foundation for Harmony — a platform designed to make music discovery more meaningful for both sides.
Exploring Ideas Through Crazy 8’s
Here are some of the sketches from the Crazy 8’s session.
Rapid ideation: Crazy 8’s sketches
Reflection:
This exercise helped me step outside the obvious solutions and consider both incremental improvements and bold new directions. It was a turning point where I realized that the swipe-based flow could transform the entire discovery experience.
Based on the insights, I wanted to explore multiple directions before committing to a solution. To do this, I ran a Crazy 8’s session, sketching 8 ideas in 8 minutes. The goal was not perfection, but to push creativity and get as many ideas on paper as possible.
The sketches covered a wide spectrum — from simple inbox filters and searchable lists to more radical swipe-based discovery flows inspired by Tinder. This exercise showed me that even small changes (like adding genre tags) could reduce friction, while bigger shifts (like swiping through dynamic profiles with music previews) had potential to transform the whole discovery experience.
From the Crazy 8’s, I selected three directions to move forward with:
Filtering tools for A&R — a way to handle high volume faster.
Visibility features for artists — ensuring their work doesn’t disappear into inbox chaos.
Swipe discovery flow — fast scanning of talent based on music, style, and key info.
This step gave me a broad design space to explore and a foundation for the wireframes and user flows that followed.
Early sketches showing the core user flows
Reflection:
The low-fidelity wireframes helped transform early ideas into tangible concepts, allowing me to quickly test and visualize the core features. This stage highlighted the importance of functionality over visuals, focusing on how flows and interactions could solve user needs. By keeping the designs simple and flexible, it was easier to explore multiple directions and identify which concepts had the strongest potential before moving into high-fidelity design.
To translate the insights into tangible concepts, I created low-fidelity wireframes. These sketches helped me visualize and test how the core features could work together before moving into more detailed design.
Swipe-based discovery
Inspired by Tinder mechanics, this flow allows A&R to quickly browse through artists by swiping left or right. It makes the discovery process faster, more intuitive, and reduces the overload of long inboxes.Pitch Video Wireframe
This screen gives artists a way to share a short video pitch in addition to their music. It adds personality and story, helping A&R understand the person behind the sound. This feature was designed to bridge the emotional gap that pure audio cannot always cover.Project Pitch Wireframe
A dedicated space where artists can pitch ideas for new projects or collaborations. Beyond just showcasing tracks, this feature encourages creativity, initiative, and makes it easier for A&R to spot potential partnerships.Artist Profile Wireframe
Going beyond the swipe card, the profile screen provides deeper context: bio, genre tags, music previews, collaborations, and a messaging option. This ensures that once an A&R is interested, they can quickly gather the relevant details and reach out.These wireframes served as a foundation for the next design phase, giving a clear view of how functionality could support both artist visibility and A&R efficiency.
From feedback to iteration: Improving the experience
Designing a solution, learning from the process
Harmony as a potential solution to ghosting in artist discovery
I am proud that the users I interviewed expressed a sense of hope and saw Harmony as a potential solution to the problem of ghosting in the music industry. This confirmed that design, when rooted in research, can address real needs and create genuine value.
Through this project, I learned the importance of working iteratively and user-centered — constantly testing, refining, and building on insights rather than locking into an early solution. I also gained hands-on experience in translating research and wireframes into high-fidelity prototypes, and saw how details like typography, color, and hierarchy can shape the overall user experience.
If I were to do things differently, I would conduct more user tests across different stages of the process, to capture insights earlier. I would also explore closer collaboration with developers to better understand technical opportunities and limitations.
After one year of studying UX/UI Design at Chas Academy, this project has been a milestone in my growth. It strengthened my ability to design concepts that are not only visually engaging but also solve real problems and create meaningful impact for users.
