UX Case Study: Live virtual concerts without VR

How to capture a live concert experience in a virtual context

Feel free to click to on the video below to see our prototype in action:

Background

Blind Chihuahua is a concert live streaming pay-per-view service and production company. They are looking to develop an immersive virtual concert platform, facilitating audience participation via webcam motion capture avatars in lieu of VR technology.

Blind Chihuahua would like to know who their customers are, what constitutes a minimum viable product for their build and if motion capture avatars are a valid idea.

The challenge isn’t replicate a live concert experience and translate this into a virtual context but to capture the qualities that make it special.

Problem Statment

“Music lovers want to attend live gigs but can’t attend due to varying circumstances. They encounter virtual gigs as a possible alternative but are unsure if it will feel the same as going to a live music experience.”

Scoping Framework

In scoping the project we uncovered some key assumptions we wanted to validate:

Users want to attend live virtual music gigs.
The motion capture avatar is a necessary feature.

Research Objectives & Methods

With our research we wanted to:

Understand the elements that make a live gig memorable.
Understand people’s behaviours at a live gig.
Validate/ invalidate the motion capture avatar feature that Blind Chihuahua are proposing.

Competitor Analysis

We analysed Blind Chihuahua’s four main competitors, Sansar, Second Life, AltSpaceVR and StageIt. We came to the following key findings.

A great community is vital to an event being fun.
People like to design and be creative.
Avatars are a great for self-expression.
Interface, ease of use, having an intuitive design/layout is important.
Users expect no technical issues.

Affinity Map

Our surveys and interviews came to the following key findings:

An amazing atmosphere, great energy, good music and being with friends are what makes gigs extra special.
Respondents expect a more intimate setting at smaller venues while larger events came with bigger expectations in terms of production value.
52% of respondents were unlikely to chat with a stranger online.
People were confused, thinking that virtual events will replace live gigs.
Most interviewees were hesitant to try virtual gigs. They were concerned about how different it would be to a live music event. This disproves the first assumption that users want to attend live virtual music gigs.

Motion Capture Avatar

Interviewees have said that the avatar and environment should look realistic, otherwise they take away from the immersive experience. Most people wouldn’t strike up a conversation with an avatar, either. Some interviewees had tried the Travis Scott x Fortnite concert and didn’t enjoy the event.

Our findings disprove the second assumption that the motion capture avatar is a necessary feature. However, with the industry moving towards avatars, we have agreed with the client to explore the avatar idea within two specific contexts; in creating an immersive experience and facilitating social connections.

Personas & Archetype

Two personas began to emerge: someone who was wanting the concert full experience and the casual concert-goer. At a couple of points in the concert, both personas embody the same archetype of feeling a sense of euphoria, heightened by the music, the crowd and the atmosphere.

The two personas would later translate into the active and passive modes of participation within the virtual concert, while the archetype informs the quintessential concert experience that we are looking to capture with our concept.

Customer Journey Map

The sentiment line peaks at a couple of points. This is where euphoria happens. Euphoria is where the concert experience is most potent — feeling exhilarated from the energy of the music, the crowd & the atmosphere. We have used this as a guiding principle for our concept which also improves on the pain points and captures the memorable moments of a live gig.

Memorable Moments: Watching your favourite band/ artist perform, the excitement that anything could happen, the electrifying atmosphere, having a blast in the mosh pit and meeting the band/ artist backstage.

Our Focus

There are two main pillars driving our concept:

MVP Matrix

The features of Phase 1 & 2 emphasise the immersive qualities of sound and ambience while facilitating social connection through virtual, voice and video interactions. Our prototype encompasses the features of Phase 1 & 2 to allow us to validate the concept in its fullest form.

Information Architecture

We’ve have translated the lived experience of a concert into features across the three stages of the virtual concert; pre-concert, concert and post-concert. For examples, pre-drinks are a great opportunity for people to socialise and get ready for the concert. Similarly our pre-concert features facilitate social connections by allowing the user to invite friends, set up their avatar and watch bonus content together.

User Flow

We had 4 primary user flows that informed the build of our prototype.

Social Connection:

Flow 1: Invite a friend via social media or video chat.

Flow 4: Artist asks audience to do an action; user decides how they want to interact via the avatar.

Immersive Experience:

Flow 2: Personalise the concert — adjust camera and sound controls.

Flow 3: Create your avatar pre-concert and record your preset movements.

Technology

We wanted to measure people’s degree of involvement at the gig. By giving the user the option to use a smart watch or a smartphone as a controller device, we are able to plot the user’s heart rate and movement through their built-in mechanisms.

The gyroscope and accelerometer of a smartphone and a smart watch recognises how a user moves their arms in a 3D space. This can be used as an alternative to the motions captured by the webcam. By using the smartphone and smartwatch as a controller device, we can give the user the option of taking the virtual concert experience away from sitting at the computer and giving them the freedom to move in front of a TV.

Passive Interaction

Streaming devices: Computer or laptop

Controller device: Webcam

Defining traits: As evidenced by our research, there are different ways people like to experience music and participate in a virtual live music event. In the the passive mode of interaction, the virtual live concert experience is streamed via a computer and movement is captured via a webcam. These users tend to prioritise the music experience over virtual interactions or social connections, with little to no physical participation.

Active Interaction

Streaming device: TV

Controller device: Smartphone or smart watch

Defining traits: In the active mode of interaction, the experience happens away from the computer and in front of a TV. With a smartphone or a smart watch as the controller device, the user is given full freedom of movement. These users are in it for the full experience of the virtual live music concert with a high degree of physical participation and social interaction.

Wireframes

On the desktop screen, interaction will take place via collapsable menus on either side of the screen. The left feature controls to customise sound and camera while the right hand side prioritises features for text, voice & video chat. The right also features a menu similar to the options in the pre-concert screen which will take you in and out of the concert.

Hi-Fi Prototypes & Usability Testing

Feel free to click to on the video below to see our prototype in action:

Question: What are your thoughts on this screen and what you would like to explore?

User Feedback: All respondents liked this screen as it was laid out nicely, easy to read and understand. Respondents would begin by creating their avatar, changing up the background music, inviting their friends to get ready together and get in the mood for the gig.

Improvements: The text above the artist/ band name and timer is hard to read. Increase opacity to make this more visible.

Question: How would you like to turn up — as an avatar, yourself or nothing?

User Feedback: Half the respondents would turn up as an avatar, saying that it is very realistic and would be fun to customise. The other half wouldn’t because they are not a fan of avatars. They don’t want to spend the time setting up their avatar and are there for the music. There is also an interest in how friends and other people are turning up to the event.

Improvements: Seeing other people’s/ friends’ avatars is important as this was an activity that was done together during live gigs.

Question: What are your thoughts on pre-recording your movements and what would you do?

User Feedback: Users were surprised by the range of movement you can do with motion capture. They had a preference for motion capture over pre-recorded movements as this is more interesting. They would record a few dance moves beforehand.

Improvements: Technology is important to ensure that it is a smooth experience when recording your movements using your chosen device.

Question: How do you feel about the sound and camera settings and what preferences would you have?

User Feedback:

Great to be able to personalise the experience so you can just watch the music or have other noises in the background.
Having different camera angles and the flexibility to tailor the settings is great.
Music is good quality and better than expected.
Don’t want friends to be shouting over the voice chat; will use the chat system to message each other.

Improvements: Placement of the avatar can be distracting when you just want to listen to the music.

Question: How does it feel to see your friend and chat to them?

Feedback:

Great to see and interact with them but they are a bit too close to the band and taking up half the screen. Best to move them somewhere else.
You don’t normally get to do this in a real life gig as it’s too noisy. Interesting to interact with other people. Would use it.
Can you turn this off? I don’t want other people finding me.

Improvements: More flexibility to give users the chance to turn these features on and off during the performance.

Question: On a scale of 0–5, where 0 is passive and 5 is really active, how much would you interact at the concert?

Feedback:

2 because I don’t really talk to people. I’m not in it for the socialising.
5 because I like the features.
Interaction depends on what the artist is asking me to do. I can’t tell what I’d do without being in the moment. Sometimes I might be passive whereas other times I may be dancing.

Usability Testing Key Findings

All 4 respondents would like to attend this gig if given the opportunity.
More time should be allowed for the pre-concert experience so users can explore the features, get an understanding of what to expect and what is to come.
Flexibility is key to allow users to customise the concert to their preferences. Some are just solely there for the music whilst others are also there to socialise with friends.
Positioning of elements need to be carefully considered so they don’t clutter the main screen for users who want to focus on the music.
More testing is required to understand users’ actual behaviour in the online environment. Our interviews suggested that users would interact at different points of the gig and not during the whole performance.
Participants interviewed were cost-conscious.

Conclusion

The challenge wasn’t to recreate a live gig but to capture the qualities that make it special and translate this into a virtual context. An amazing atmosphere, great energy, good music and being with friends are what make a concert experience special. Informed by our research, two main pillars were driving our solution; aiming to create an immersive experience and to facilitate social connections within a virtual live music event.

By streaming via computers or TV, and by having a choice of controller devices between webcam, smartphone or smart watch, we have allowed for a flexibility of use between passive and active modes of participation. The personalised controls of the prototype cater to individualised needs while emphasising the immersive qualities of sound and ambience. Virtual interactions, invite-a-friend, voice and video chat features create a social experience. Our solution creates an immersive experience, facilities social connections and allows for flexibility of use between passive and active modes of interaction.

Next Steps

Our next steps would be to understand the concert experiences of teenage users, implement Phase 3 of the design as well as develop a full or partial build of the platform to accurately test usability.

Client Feedback

“That was amazing! You’ve gone above and beyond. You’ve included things we haven’t thought of. It’s great to see the ease of use you’ve put into it; that’s something we’ve been struggling to figure out. You got it across in a simple way. It captured the spirit of Blind Chihuahua. It felt really exciting and it made you want to join in!”
Paula Jones, Founder of Blind Chihuahua

Team

Jessie Obien: Project lead, UX research, UX/UI design

Serena Wong: UX research, UX design

Fabian Artunduaga: UI design, graphic design, video editing

Shila Aghdami: UX research