Bandcamp Discover

I worked with Bandcamp to create a new consistent and familiar discovery browsing interface. I began by auditing all the relevant discovery and tags interfaces across their web, mobile, and app products.

From this research, I identified the following issues with the current discovery interfaces:

1. From a user perspective having multiple discovery & tags interfaces across platforms could be confusing. It would be valuable to create consistency across all of Bandcamp's web, mobile, and app interfaces.
2. The “highlights” and “all releases” buttons were lost in the visual hierarchy of the page. “Highlights” are especially valuable for promoting new releases and products and would increase revenue if it was more prominent.
3. The naming of filters in the current discovery interface could lead to confusion. Filters like, "time" could be interpreted in many ways by users.

Mapping current discovery flows

I mapped out the user flow of the current discovery interface to see if there were any aspects that could be simplified in the redesign.

Reimagining the discovery interface

I worked quickly with low-fidelity wireframes to explore various new layouts for the discovery interface. This allowed me to focus on creating a clear visual hierarchy without getting distracted by the complex gradient and coloring system of the filtering system.

In parallel I translated my wireframes to mobile to flag any issues before moving to higher fidelity prototypes.

Once I was able to establish a hierarchy for the interface, I tried various color treatments using the current filtering color system.

Reflections

Through several iterations, I designed an interface that brought together the best aspects of the various discovery and tags systems and the met the UX goals of the project.

Bandcamp's design team was excited about my work and found that my solution exceeded their expectations.

While I found a workable solution to Bandcamp's problem of creating a new consistent and familiar discovery browsing interface, I would have liked to approach this problem more holistically and consider if there are other approaches to surfacing content from Bandcamp's vast archive.