Music Discovery for Better Grammy Awards

Voting and surveys shouldn’t be a pain in the [you know what]. As a self-initiated speculative project, I conceived and designed a new approach to GRAMMY Awards voting by leveraging streaming, sleek UI, and a deep understanding of user experience. The goal of this exercise was to encourage participation, viewing, and listening of a wider range of products for the world’s biggest and most visible music award show.

• “There are so many entries on these lists. How will I get through the ballot?”
• “I never would have stumbled on that record!”
• “My favorite part about the screening process is discovering new music!”

Update:

While the discovery solution remains speculative, the ability for artists, teams, and record labels to upload streaming links with their entry are now a reality! This was a no-brainer since the experience of finding a PDF with hundreds of entries without links was not a good user experience.

Lesson:

Never be afraid to experiment and iterate on existing systems through design thinking. Being a leader in any organization is as much about connecting the dots, as it is about helping stakeholders envision solutions. Design teaches us to make things and as an avid reader of entrepreneur scholarship such as the “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries, the prototyping required for innovation can be done with low risk, low fidelity mock ups.