UX Writing Exercise

Background: A UX Writer suggested in an informational interview that I practice typical tasks of the position to become familiar with this unique way of writing. For this exercise, I evaluated an app I enjoy using (YouTube Music), and listed 1) What is working well 2) What can be improved and 3) Suggestions for improvement. Please view my exercise below.

12/23/20

Evaluating YouTube (YT) Music App to Improve UX

What Is Working Well:

  • Can start radio from song
    • Can hand-pick music or start radio within 1 app! Don’t need to have multiple apps to do different functions
  • Love autoplay feature– songs it recommends are to my taste
    • Impressed by AI technology to recommend similar songs I’ve never heard but end up really liking
    • Great way to find new music
  • Like “Lyrics” feature in now playing. I can sing along!
  • “Home”, “Explore”, “Library”, and “Upgrade” buttons listed from left to right at bottom of app make for easy navigation

What Can Be Improved:

  1. Albums I tap often incomplete versions
    • Are they based on user-created playlists? Users may not include all songs by choice
    • Ex: Taylor Swift’s evermore (explicit version only, not clean version) incomplete before being fixed, waited days for all songs to be in album when tapping it
  2. Sometimes small icons for songs and albums, sometimes large ones. Feels inconsistent, especially when looking at music videos
    • Doesn’t make sense that trending videos are small but new songs are large with large album cover
    • Inconsistency: not a problem with videos with a still picture (videos with album covers only). These are rectangles with play arrow
  3. My account (profile icon) only in upper right-hand corner sometimes (ex: not there when looking at album or in now playing)
    • Wish profile icon was on every screen so I could quickly go to settings or switch Google account I’m using
    • Search icon is on more screens in upper-right hand corner than profile icon. Feels inconsistent
    • Computer bug: profile icon and search icon will disappear from screens they’re supposed to be on (in other words sometimes they’re there and sometimes they’re not. Ex: “Home” screen)

Suggestions For Improvement:

  1. Create albums based on artist’s official YouTube channel playlists (not user-created playlists)
    • Use artist’s official YouTube channel to compile album lists. Many artists, including Taylor Swift and The Piano Guys, post YouTube videos of all their songs (often Vevo videos) and have playlists created of full albums with songs in correct order
  2. To distinguish between songs and music videos, add video icon or play icon to music videos that already have rectangles that move.
    • Icon more intuitive
    • Alternative to scrolling so video is all the way on phone screen before it starts moving
  3. Add profile icon to right of search icon which already appears on album pages, artist pages, and individual pages in “Library” (other than “Downloads” page, which already has search and profile icons–inconsistent)
    • Use same or similar code currently on “Home”, “Explore”, “Library”, and “Upgrade” main screens? (where search and profile icons always seen together in top right-hand corner)
    • No “YouTube Music” icon header needed, esp. since back arrow needs to be in upper left-hand corner of album pages and artist pages