BANDLAB · PRODUCT DESIGN
Helping musicians find more compatible collaborators through shared goals and skills
UX research
UX/UI design
visual design
Understanding compatibility
I started by looking at how musicians currently find one another. Competitive research showed that many rely on general-purpose platforms such as Reddit and Craigslist, while more specialized alternatives tend to serve professional musicians or require paid software.
To understand what makes a collaboration actually work, I interviewed 5 professional and amateur musicians and surveyed 33 additional participants.I started by looking at how musicians currently find one another. Competitive research showed that many rely on general-purpose platforms such as Reddit and Craigslist, while more specialized alternatives tend to serve professional musicians or require paid software.
To understand what makes a collaboration actually work, I interviewed 5 professional and amateur musicians and surveyed 33 additional participants.
Four factors consistently emerged:
Shared musical interests
Similar genres, influences, and tastes.
Complementary skills
The right instruments, capabilities, and level of proficiency.
Aligned goals and commitment
Similar ambitions, expectations, and willingness to put in the work.
Compatible working styles
Communication, flexibility, responsiveness, and openness to feedback.
These became the foundation of the product.
Turning compatibility into the product experience
The research shifted the problem from simply helping musicians find other musicians to helping them determine who they are actually likely to work well with. I used the compatibility attributes from discovery to structure three connected parts of the experience:
- Onboarding Capture a musician’s skills, interests, goals, and preferences.
- Profile Make those signals visible to potential collaborators.
- Search and matching Use those same attributes to surface and evaluate compatible musicians.
This created a direct connection between what users told the platform about themselves and what they later saw in search results.
Designing around the moment of evaluation
Mapping the journey revealed a critical question:
That became the key design problem.
Rather than treating search results as a directory, I explored how each result could help musicians quickly judge fit through goals, musical style, skills, location, and examples of their work.
Mapping the journey revealed a critical question:
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What does a musician need to know before deciding whether someone is worth contacting?
That became the key design problem.
Rather than treating search results as a directory, I explored how each result could help musicians quickly judge fit through goals, musical style, skills, location, and examples of their work.
Key opportunity: help users judge compatibility before contacting someone.
Exploring the core journey
I mapped the primary path from onboarding through search and contact, then used wireflows and sketches to work through content hierarchy, search behavior, profile structure, and matching cues before moving into a testable prototype.
From flow structure to interface exploration
Prototyping the experience
I translated the core journey into a mid-fidelity prototype covering onboarding, profile creation, search, evaluation, and contact.
The prototype was intentionally detailed enough to test not only the flow, but also the language, search behavior, and information users relied on when judging a potential match.
Testing changed how musicians searched and evaluated matches
In the first round of moderated testing, musicians consistently wanted to narrow incompatible options earlier and see more evidence of fit before opening a full profile.
Three findings had the biggest impact on the design:
Finding 1Location needed to come first
Musicians wanted to decide whether they were looking for someone nearby, remote, or either before seeing search results.
Design change
Added In-person / Remote / Both to the initial search criteria.
Finding 1
Location needed to come first
Musicians wanted to decide whether they were looking for someone nearby, remote, or either before seeing search results.Design change
Added In-person / Remote / Both to the initial search criteria.
Finding 2
Results needed to show more evidence of compatibility
Users wanted to know where someone was located, what they hoped to achieve, and what their music actually sounded like without opening every profile.Design change
Added location, audio samples, clearer match information, and more useful content directly to result cards.Finding 3The language needed to sound more natural
The language needed to sound more natural
Terms such as “Reviews” and “Technologies” were technically accurate but felt ambiguous or overly formal to users.
Design change
Replaced system-oriented terminology with clearer, more conversational language.The language needed to sound more natural
Final experience
The final concept connects onboarding, profile creation, search, and evaluation into one experience built around compatibility rather than simple discovery.
Profiles turn those attributes into a richer picture of the musician, combining goals, background, influences, and examples of their work.
Search results are designed for quick comparison, helping musicians evaluate fit before committing time to a deeper profile review.
The result is a community experience that helps musicians move from discovery to meaningful collaboration with more confidence.
Creating a visual language for a creative community
The final visual system needed to feel expressive enough for music culture without compromising the clarity required for search, comparison, and decision-making.
I defined three principles:
Bold, but welcoming
Aspirational, but grounded
Functional, but energizing
The system combines expressive imagery and typography with restrained interface components so the people and their music remain the focus.