How Design Makes Music Matter
As we take a look into streaming as our primary means of music consumption, we uncover how designing the visuals of software (UI) plays a huge part in our listening experience.
Design makes listening to music life-changing. It's a critical part of defining the human experience, and so it follows the digitisation of society.
The digitisation of music has introduced a vast array of touchpoints where music and design weave together to enrich the experience.
Let's look at how the listening experience has evolved.
From large vinyl covers to tiny icons at the corner of our phone screens, design has accommodated music lovers at every step of the evolution. One result of this has design evolution is the portability of music. From being a stationary piece of equipment inhabiting a designated space in one's living quarters to being a push-of-a-button away wherever you are, we can appreciate that technological advancements edified by user-friendly design experiences has made music an omnipresent entity in society. Music accompanies your every step outside.
Another evolving aspect of music is its modes for customisation and privacy. When we think back to orchestras and grammaphones, this music was fully intended to fill large open spaces with various occupants. Now, we listen to music from tiny speakers that are fitted into our ear cannals. Technology has now offered us a 'noise-cancelling' experience, keeping our listening experience pure and true to its sound with no disturbance from the outside world. This has brought music to a deeply personal and private level. Not only do we decide the song, we have been given the power to adjust volume and the settings of the sound experience (bass, reverb) to suit our tastes.
Have these two major developments of music technology, however, impacted our relationship with music negatively?
Streaming means we have grown into the habit of passively listening to music, so the challenge now for artists is to return meaning to the listening experience.
"When music is a more passive background experience, people are missing out. There's less impact and a loss of that emotional resonance."
Source: The Design + Music Industries Are BFF, AIGA Eye On Design, 2016
Now, creating an engaging experience with music can be argued to heavily depends on UI/UX. The designer focuses on making the user experience of streaming platforms tailored to the audience, making navigation and music discovery meaningful and memorable.
At Amazon Music, designers are training their AI to 'suggest music that compliments a particular time of day, location, activity or even type of weather." Could this be the modern way of finding meaning in music?
Q: How would you describe your music-listening experience?
