Discogs Social
Client: Discogs Social
Roles: UX Researcher, Designer, Writer, Presenter
Methods: Competitive Audit, User Interviews, Wireframing, Kano Analysis, Prototyping, Usability Testing
Tools: Figma, Zoom, Google Meets
The Brief:
Create an extension of the website for record collectors to include a more robust social site that enhanced features for buyers, sellers, and the social media vinyl/music community
What I Did:
I was the sole researcher and designer for this project. I conducted user interviews, a Kano analysis, ran usability testing, designed wireframes and made a high-fidelity prototype.
Introduction
Discogs is a website for record collectors.
It has several purposes:
1. It serves as a marketplace for sellers and buyers of records. Discogs keeps pricing history for different pressings of albums. So, buyers and sellers can be transparent about what a fair market price might be.
2. It serves as a database. It can help you determine what type of record you might be holding in your hand. It can tell you the year it was pressed, the label that made the record, where it was made, who plays on the album, etc.
3. Discogs serves as a catalog. If you would like to keep track of what records you have, how many records you have, and an estimated value of your collection, Discogs can help you with that.
4. Lastly, but most importantly for this study, Discogs also serves as a community of record collectors. Discogs’ community features include: groups, forums, and something they refer to as “friends.”
My interview subjects all found the current Discogs community to be off-putting, intimidating and unwelcoming.
For this project- I focused my attention on extending the design of the community section of Discogs.
The Process
Competitive Audit
User Interviews
Wireframing
Kano Analysis
High-Fidelity Prototyping
Usability Testing
Design Re-iterations
I took on this process because it would allow me to see what unique needs could be met for users before building the prototype.
The Research
If the Vinyl Community is not on Discogs, which sites are they using to share their love for records and collecting?
What can Discogs uniquely offer to attract users to a social site?
My research primarily focused on people who already exist at the intersection of record collecting and social media. I spoke with several people who were using other social sites to talk about records, particularly YouTube and Instagram.
Each person cited different reasons and different goals for their vinyl related social media: nostalgia, love of music, buying and selling records, and others, but many agreed that making Discogs a more social-oriented site would be a step forward.
Through a Kano Analysis, many agreed that basic social features, such as a chat, activity stream, and mutual friend request would be necessary to make Discogs Social a true social media site, but what rose from these conversations were three unique features that would particularly cater to record collectors.
A Trading Page
A page that would allow for users to interact and swap through Discogs.
“This is a huge issue in the community that needs a solution.”
- M, Vinyl YouTuber
"I love trading. I think it’s essential to the connection of music lovers.”
- R, Vinyl YouTuber
Artists’ Pages
Pages that would allow the use of hashtags to focus the conversation on a particular artist. Through this, users could find others with common interests.
“We want to highlight our love for the format [vinyl].”
- M, Vinyl Instagrammer and YouTuber
“I just want to make a couple of friends. I just want to talk about music.”
- A, Vinyl YouTuber
Sellers’ Feed
A feed where users could sort through the noise of the current daily wantlist email and sort for sellers that the user has trusted previously.
“I never buy on Discogs, because [I don’t trust the condition of the records].”
- H, Vinyl Instagrammer
“Finding trusted sellers is a huge plus.”
- B, Vinyl YouTuber, Instagrammer, and Curator
User Interviews
The Design Iterations
To begin designing, I created user flows for each new feature and then built that feature as a prototype using Figma.
What began as the wireframes for the Kano Analysis became a more robust prototype. Here are some video walkthroughs of each of the three unique features to Discogs Social.
Trading Page
Sellers’ Feed
Artists’ Pages
Prototyping
Next Steps
Add to Prototype
While some of the standard social media features are implied on the current prototype I would like to build them to a degree where they are more functional on Discogs Social.
Further Research
I would like to interview current Discogs forum users, and a broader range of current social media users. What might Facebook or TikTok be doing right that we could learn from?
Additionally, I would like to ask the question: would Discogs Social mean that Discogs would lose a bunch of current users of the forums and groups? How can Discogs Social exist while retaining the current user base?
Trading
Users had expressed some concerns over the logistics of trading. How could users be held accountable for their part in trades with other users? How can Discogs Social assure traders that they are not going to be scammed out of their precious records?