NPR Tiny Desk Concerts: Music Discovery Experience

Three questions to the project team

What was the particular challenge of the project from a UX point of view?
The core UX challenge was preserving the feeling of organic discovery that defines how many listeners find new music. Our research showed that people value the serendipity of stumbling into artists. Designing a digital experience that recreated that crate-digging energy, while still offering clarity, structure, and accessibility, meant rethinking how content surfaced and how users navigated emerging artists. We had to create space for continuous exploration without overwhelming them, balancing intuitive wandering with gentle guidance so users genuinely felt like they were uncovering something new.

What was your personal highlight in the development process? Was there an aha!-moment, was there a low point?
Our collective highlight was realizing we could bridge the joy of crate-digging vinyl (browsing unpredictably and following instinct) into a digital interaction that still felt tactile and exploratory. That shift unlocked the core interaction model of the redesign. A key challenge was ensuring emerging artists didn’t get drowned out by big names. We created mood and genre filters to surface a fairer mix of musicians and added optional sound previews so users could browse based on feel rather than fame. Returning to user interviews grounded these choices and helped us recalibrate quickly, turning that alignment into a real inflection point.

Where do you see yourself and the project in the next five years?