chromatic.net: erik gibb's professional stuff: portfolio: musicbank
MusicBank was a "Jukebox in the sky" service that never quite got off the ground (Unless you count a neverending public beta, and a fantastically conspicuous "launch" party that was rumored to cost over a million dollars and featured James Brown as the evenings headliner ;-) I was hired as the Information Architect but as the company contracted, my role expanded to include graphic design and web development.
Chimay
- company: Musicbank
- type: ia / design / html / javascript
- description: "Chimay" was an internal tool used to search the musicbank collection for CDs and add them to the developer's test account. We needed to demonstrate a "subscription content" model to potential investors. It required a new, more usable and more secure interface.
- screenshot: pdf (120 k) >>
Track Blocking Iconography
- company: Musicbank
- type: ia / design
- description: This document described the icons used to represent the different states of blocked or unrecognized CDs and Tracks. It explains the rationale behind the choices, basic graphic explorations, and recommendations for placement.
- screenshot: pdf (72 k) >>
Artist/Genre Indices
- company: Musicbank
- type: ia / design / html
- description: One of the coolest underlying pieces of functionality was the user's ability to slice and dice her collection in various ways. The first set of interfaces we built for this allowed the user to sort the entire collection based on either artist or genre, with various display bells and whistles.
- screenshot: pdf (548 k) >>
Fee Based Services
- company: Musicbank
- type: ia
- description: At some point, it became apparent that we would actually have to charge for the service in order to become profitable! We had about one week to design and implement an interface that allowed the user to choose from a variety of service plans, enter payment information, preview their order, process the order, and provide a receipt for the interaction.
- screenshot: pdf (424 k) >>
musicbank 2.0 information architecture
- company: Musicbank
- type: ia / design
- description: The 2nd version of our interface was a different conceptual model from the first. A distinction was drawn between the user who preferred a simple mechanism to play music online, vs. a more sophisticated user that wanted advanced sorting and playlist creation capabilities. Along with a basic wireframe that logically divided all the site and application navigation and content areas, I sketched a rough design that correlated to our existing look and feel to help our staff understand the new concepts being introduced.
- screenshot: pdf (596 k) >>
Bank-It Track Blocking
- company: Musicbank
- type: ia / design
- description: The legal quagmire surrounding internet media distribution meant that none, some, or possibly all the tracks on any given CD could be "blocked" by the publisher -- unavailable for streaming from musicbank to the user. Additionally, any CD may or may not be recognizable by matching its table of contents against something like cddb.com -- also unavailable to the user. When the user scanned a CD Bank-It would inform the user exactly what the status of that CD and all of it's tracks, giving them information about why a CD and/or its tracks were unavailable in their account. An informed user is a happy user (or at least happier).
- screenshot: pdf (104 k) >>
Track Blocking Web Interface
- company: Musicbank
- type: ia / design
- description: After a user scanned a CD using Bank-It, it would be represented in their musicbank account. It was obviously necessary to persist the state of the CDs and Tracks to the web interface so the user could check the status of their account at a glance. This describes the user interaction associated with the track blocking feedback mechanism.
- screenshot: pdf (72 k) >>
Browse & Play
- company: Musicbank
- type: ia / design
- description: Half of the main experience was creating playlists for later recall. The other half was the ability to quickly locate a CD or track and play it immediately. This document describes how to implement the browse and play interaction.
- screenshot: pdf (656 k) >>
Entry Points to Fee Based Services
- company: Musicbank
- type: ia / design
- description: After we created a mechanism to charge for our service, we needed to provide hooks in the application to bring people to the purchase. We wanted people to sign up immediately, but we also needed to handle the situation when their free trial subscription ran out. What if it ran out while they were logged in? What if it happened in the middle of a streamed track or playlist of tracks? This document answers all questions.
- screenshot: pdf (672 k) >>
musicbank 2.0 Dog & Pony
- company: Musicbank
- type: ia / design / html / javascript
- description: After we had some basic designs finished it was necessary to shop the look and feel around with the executive staff. This was designed to be printed out on a plotter-jet, slapped against a wall, and tap danced around to build excitement for "musicbank - the next generation!"
- screenshot: pdf (500 k) >>
