Frequency is an audio production workflow management platform. A brand or agency can create a production request, edit and approve a script, review and approve auditions and final audio, and finally, build and traffic their ad.
Wireframing
Visual Design
Prototyping
Copywriting
Frequency is unique in offering the ability to create and manage dynamic audio spots. A brand could have 10 unique spots—dynamic audio determines when to play which spot. Depending on how and where someone is listening they're delivered tailored audio content.
The question was, how do we create an audio builder that can take into account any number of different variables? Then, how do we make it easy for a user to build themselves?
Having worked as a developer myself, I understood that basic computer logic had to govern how and when audio files were selected for playback; all based around conditional statements. The biggest challenge was to convey this visually. And because this was the first ask and the product was new to me, just wrapping my head around the brand, the concept, and the particulars in start-up turnaround time was quite an effort.
Selecting which factors affect file playback was the first step. It was required that a user be able to define their own variables as well. I knew this would be a challenge from a backend perspective (translating to the frontend via errors) and urged extreme caution on behalf of the client.
Based on looking at the UX from the previous design round, it took me a while just to understand when an audio file would actually play. I knew I had to make it very clear with design and copy what, exactly, would happen when a user selected certain criteria.
Once scripts have been approved, an audio vendor will produce them. How do we manage the process from the vendor side as well as the client side for commenting and approval? How do we show different versions?
A user is able to add multiple scripts to any set of Data Signals so we needed a dynamic naming convention that, if variants are added don't go consecutively and don't rename other variants. If we start with 10 script variants for 10 sets of Data Signals, how is script 11 tagged if it matches existing Data Signals?
We opted to append an "a", "b", "c" label to subsequent variants within a Data Signal. While a chronologic label would be preferred, we felt it was confusing to have Variant 1 and Variant 13 grouped together. Better to have "1a", "1b", "1c", etc.
Comments are displayed in the right column. Tags for current versions are prominent in yellow, while comments referring to previous versions have a light grey border.
Once an audio file has been approved a user can find it in their asset library.
The history of F Sharp was as a music advertising agency. I wanted to reflect that in icons that dot the experience. They appear on success screens and notifications as fun elements in an otherwise business-oriented product.
Previous designs allowed a user to create an ad unit or production request from anywhere on the platform. While convenient, when it came to finding and managing them, it was very confusing. Updated site architecture was required.
Because of the emphasis on collaboration, analysis of the ad creation flow showed the previous flow was missing a team definition component.
Between admin, internal team, and external team, each with different roles and permissions, a detailed flow was required to explain who gets what notification when.
© Michael Pasternak, 2021
