Virtu.Academy

 

Music lessons. Reinvented.

 

The Mission.

 

Since 2018, Virtu.Academy has been providing online private music lessons to users from vetted, professional musicians. I was asked to conduct Generative Research to

  • Create user personas.

  • Uncover user motivations for online lessons.

  • Understand user hesitancy towards online lessons.

  • Discover what information + credentials are most important for users in selecting a music teacher.

Additionally, Evaluative Research was requested to learn how to improve usability of the lesson reservation process for a new user.

For this project, I did not work as part of a team. Reports + deliverables may be made available for interview purposes.

Discovery.

 

Following a Stakeholder’s Interview, data was provided via Google Analytics, results of survey conducted, collaboration with the customer service department, and reviews/comments left on social media accounts. This information was enough to develop Proto-Personas of users to guide recruitment for the later phases of research.

Generative.

 

Generative methods proposed for this phase include:

  • One-On-One Interviews.

    • User interviews from 3 current users of Virtu.Academy and 3 users who have never used Virtu.academy. This data will be used to contextualize current demographic data + confirm/deny/refine proto-personas.

  • Closed Card Sorting Activity.

    • Used to sort teacher profiles and qualifications into categories relevant to the participant’s confidence in the teacher.

  • Open Card Sorting Activity.

    • To discover what teacher qualifications are most important to the participant.

Evaluative.

 

Evaluative methods proposed for this phase include:

  • Moderated Bench Mark Usability Test (schedule + book a lesson).

    • Quantitative data will be collected and measured with a Combined Task Level Metric (Efficiency + Effectiveness + Ease) via a Single Usability Metric (SUM) score. This metric was chosen because it will provide a baseline for a “before and after” evaluation.

    • Bernoulli variance or polynomial interpolation will be considered for data analyses for better data reporting. The reason for these interventions may be explored HERE.

  • Heuristics Review.

    • 3 participants with UX backgrounds (one for each device: mobile, tablet, desktop).

    • The experts will be given an evaluation guide based on Jakob Nielsen’s 10 heuristic principles to facilitate commentary.

  • Expert Review.

    • 3 participants with UX backgrounds (one for each device: mobile, tablet, desktop).

    • An expert review was chosen over a heuristic review for more general comments that may be unrelated to heuristics principles.

Results.

 

Don’t mean to keep you hanging… but I’m still working!

Want to be informed when the results are in or want to learn more about my process? Let’s chat—