Instrurent
UX and Circular economy: Helping traveling musicians to rent an instrument or rent out their own musical instrument through a circular economy model.
UX Design
Circular Economy
Patent Granted
Background
Traveling with musical instruments can be costly and risky. Instrurent, a peer-to-peer (P2P) rental marketplace, makes it easy for musicians to rent instruments locally or rent out their own.
My Contribution
As a solo UX designer for a span of 3 months, I carried out UX research, UX design, and testing activities.
Problem
Traveling with musical instruments is a nightmare for musicians.
If it does not fit or is not allowed in cabin, they can be terribly damaged in transit.
Which is quite often the case.
Solution
Introducing Instrurent
A peer to peer (P2P) musical instrument rental marketplace, where users can rent from one another or rent out their own musical instrument.
A peer-to-peer what? Why?
Because interviews with 10 people and an online survey with 30 others indicated a desire to travel with their musical instruments with ease.
71.4%
Respondents want to play their musical instrument wherever they travel.
91.7%
Respondents mentioned that there was no other alternative than to pay extra at the airport.
Interviewees also shared personal anecdotes of their experience while traveling with their musical instruments.
"I thought of renting a guitar once, for a trip. Enough options were not available. Ended up purchasing a cheap guitar from OLX for 1500 INR".
-Samantha
"I travel via flight for performances. Often I have to argue with the airline staff regarding the safety of the instrument".
-Nick
Evidently, there is a conflict between musicians' wants and the impracticality of traveling with musical instruments.
With the global live music industry projected to reach $17.35 Billion by 2030, surely there must be some viable solutions out there?
InstruRentals
Delivers to a few cities
Expensive rental prices
FriendWithA
Uncontrolled rental prices
No quality check
IQ Instrument Rentals
Uncontrolled rental prices
No quality check
Since the existing solutions had shortcomings, there remains one last solution to this problem.
Although musicians are (usually) married to their musical instruments, but paying for an extra seat for it? Isn't that a costly affair?
Ideation
I was keen on finding out a solution that not only tackles the problem head-on, but is also economical and sustainable.
Renting of protective gear
Renting from local musicians
Disassembled musical instruments
Delivery of rented musical instruments
Virtualization of musical instruments
Idea Evaluation
I worked with musicians to figure out which idea would be the best to address the problem.
A plot of complexity versus value helped me identify an economical and sustainable idea: renting musical instruments from local residents. I then visualized this concept with rough sketches and low-fidelity wireframes.
Low Fidelity Wireframes
In what ways does the proposed solution tackle the issue?
Economical and fair use: Control over the rental prices by the lender ensures fair practices and economical cost.
Sustainability through circular economy: Ability to act as borrower as well as lender creates a sustainable solution.
Quality assurance: Uploading of sample sound by the lender gives an assurance of quality to the borrower.
Community Building: Renting from and to local people helps build a community, united by music.
User Testing
User testing with five musicians effectively revealed their mental models and perceptions of the application’s functionality.
Users did not make use of 'Listings' and 'Rental' subpages from the bottom navigation bar.
Users found the rent-out flow boring and took them a lot of effort to complete it.
Users were confused about the word "Category". They did not know what it actually meant.
Final Designs
Following multiple design iterations informed by user testing and feedback, I successfully brought the final designs to life.
Explore Page
Musical instruments listed for rent by local people, ensuring low rental prices.
Product Page
Musical instrument listed for rent by a local person, ensuring low rental price, and ratings and play sample sound to ensure the quality of the instrument.
Circular economy
In addition to renting an instrument, Instrurent provides a platform for musicians to rent out their musical instruments as well, making it a sustainable model and also helping them earn a little extra.
Learnings
As my first UX case study, I discovered the criticality of prioritizing user perspectives in all UX endeavors.
I discovered that user testing is crucial, as it revealed unnoticed flaws and helped me avoid later-stage costs.
Structuring interview questions proved challenging due to the need to avoid leading the interviewees.