Output is a music company that creates various products that inspire and empower musicians. Mostly it's software instruments, but they also sell furniture. I handled UX for our instruments and website, and helped launch a first of its kind content subscription service/instrument called Arcade. Towards the end of my time I redesigned their web platform.
Background
I was initially hired at Output to help with wire-frames for their first large scale software product. They were looking for assistance designing features, layouts, and flows. Quickly I found the opportunity to contribute to the overall function of design on the team, introducing research and usability tests to our iterative process, and refining how we documented designs for developer handoff.
Opportunity
My first project at Output was a subscription/instrument called Arcade. Arcade combines a loop subscription service that provides fresh sounds daily with a web-connected loop-manipulating instrument that gets feature updates regularly.
At the time it was a novel concept. It had just become widely accessible to connect audio plugins to the cloud, and no one had done anything impressive with that technology before us. To my knowledge, Arcade was the first software synth to get regular over-the-air updates, unlocking the possibility to release, learn, and iterate in a fashion that had not yet penetrated the industry.
My Role
My title was UX designer, and at Output this meant everything design related until the final visuals. I did research, user flows, layouts and IA. From time to time I did end to end work including visual designs, like on the marketplace browser for arcade, and in some UI nuances like pitch shifting and our knob designs.
PLAYING ARCADE
An overview gif of the various screens and UI of Arcade’s instrument section.
BROWSING CONTENT IN ARCADE
A look at how musicians find and load new sounds in Arcade.
SCREENS
Some day I’d like to update this page and write about the research -> design -> production process I had at TomatoShark, but for now I’ll just share some of the finished work.
Arcade main page
Loop Editing Window
Modifier Editing Window
Mixer and Effects
Modulation Editor
Browser Feed
Browser: Product Lines
Single Product Lines Page
About ME
My design process is built around understanding why. I've always enjoyed trying to understand things. I'm grateful to do it for a living.
I've been in product design since 2014. I have a background in AI, e-commerce, marketplaces, creative tools, cloud-based content, and 0-1 projects. I start each project by listening.
Most recently I served as a Senior Product Designer at Splice, helping people make better music.
I love donuts, baking bread, fashion, and damn good coffee.
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