Heat Music App
Subscription Opportunities for Premier Users
Heat Music is a media start-up company that focuses on music streaming, its business strategy is to build a user base that offers a free service. Furthermore, it evolves into a feature set so the company could monetize on a paid version.
Heat Music app currently has a healthy user base of free users, and the company ought to convert some free version users to paid version users.
Background
Problem
Heat Music app currently doesn’t have any subscription opportunities that allow both new and old users to subscribe to the paid version.
EARLY DISCOVERY
A research article from the National Association of Sale Professionals shows that people will buy a product or service to satisfy one of two following needs.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
A competitive analysis was conducted to understand how industry leaders allow their users to subscribe to a paid plan.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Pleasures to gain: Intentionally presents a paid plan's benefits and value to the user.
Fear of loss: inform and remind the users what feature sets they will miss if they remain on the free version.
Two of the solutions from above are worth considering while creating the Subscription flow that is inspired by consumer psychology such as pleasure to gain and fear of loss
USER EXPERIENCE MAP
A user experience map reperesent the journey of a user upgrade from the free version to the paid version.
USER FLOW
A user flow was developed based on the user experience map, to suggest the necessary steps that a user would take in order to subscribe to the paid version successfully.
It starts with the free version’s home page, which Heat Music currently offers, and ends with a music play page of the paid version.
LOW FIDELITY DESIGN
The low-fidelity designs were created based on the wireframes provided by the company.
Next step, conducting the first usability test.
WIREFRAME USABILITY TEST
All participants were able to subscribe to the paid version and reported the process was easy to understand.
Most participants understood when payment was complete and confirmed.
All participants could tell that they entered the “paid plan” version after the payment confirmation page.
HIGH FIDELITY DESIGN
Use of color and images to make the design looks more realistic.
Re-designed the “upgrade” button, to make it more standout.
Added more details on the payment confirmation page, to give the users peace of mind.
SECOND USABILITY TEST AND FINAL SOLUTION
Insights:
All participants were able to subscribe to the paid version and reported the process was easy to understand.
All participants understood when payment was complete and confirmed.
All participants could tell that they entered the “paid plan” version after the payment confirmation page.
Issues:
The pop-up page and the “upgrade” button on the navigation bar has the same function; it should be able to be combined.
(There are two leading solutions that serve as triggers that motivate users to subscribe to paid plans)
FINAL DESIGN
REFLECTION
As a user experience designer, creating the most seamless and smooth user flow is inseparable from an understanding that human psychology and behavior can be applied to user experience design if you do it right.
People tend to be afraid of “missing out” on something whether it is a better experience or more valuable. It is crucial for designers to understand human minds and discover the most suitable solution to the problem.