Case Study

Harnessing the power of classical music to develop baby’s brains

The Royal Conservatory of Music looks to build on the success of their in-class early childhood education programs, by creating an accessable mobile application. The app will look to combine the latest neuroscience research with traditional learning methods.

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Project Overview

Originally founded in 1886, the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) is recognized as the cornerstone of the music education in Canada. The home of the RCM, the TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning, in Toronto was recognized as a National Historic site in 1995 and is home to 77 practice and teaching studios, Koerner Hall, and various music institutes. RCM’s stated mission is “to devleop human potential through leadership in music and the arts” and as part of this they wished to extend the reach of their successful in-class early childhood eductation programs by creating a custom application for new parents. The mission of the application was to leverage the latest neuroscience research and teaching methods to provide a series of activities for parents to do with their young chilcren that would be set to classical music scores. These activities would promote healthy interactions while introducing a new audience to the RCM music catalogue and brand.

Critical to the design was that we did not want to promote screen usage, instead the applciation should provide a way to learn the activities, supply the muscial accompaniment, and give the parents the oppertunity to learn about the science behind the actions.

My Role

In this project, I provided Creative Direction, Primary User Research, Project Management, and worked directly with the client to make strategic business and monetization decisions for the application. My team consisted of 3 designers and 2 developers, working alongside RCM external talent for voiceovers and subject matter experts in neuroscience and teaching strategies.

Research Strategy

Building a successful mobile application required us to first understand the target users, new parents, and the harried nature of their daily routines. To do this, we conducted a series of in-person one-on-one research sessions with new parents in their home environments, where we had an opportunity to learn about their routines, daily drivers, and their feelings towards the RCM brand. We performed additional audits of the existing in-person classes provided by the RCM for parents and children to identify the elements where people quickly connected with the material and where instructor intervention was required.

As we moved through the design and development of the application, we repeated our in-home visits to test and validate our application designs, pivoting when needed. This allowed us to fine-tune and quickly address key areas such as adjusting the design to ensure the device would support the parent’s action rather than draw the child’s attention during play. We supported this through fine-tuned audio queues, disabled screen visuals during sessions, and learning modules separated from the activities.

Figure: One-on-One Testing and Feedback

Figure: User Personas

Figure: Analytics Tracking on Activities in BETA

Figure: BETA user survey results

User Flow in MVP

We understood that our audience was busy, tired, and had limited time that would come in starts and stops throughout the day. To address the needs, we built a design that encouraged return engagements while allowing for sessions of different lengths. Our goal was to ensure that there were no special equipment or tools needed to perform the actions, and each action should encourage interaction between parent and child while avoiding situations where the phone or device is interacted with beyond playing accompanying music.

To support this we designed a play structure encorporating:

Quick introductory animations for actions to be watched before starting;
Metronome sounds for timing;
Audio queues for starts and stops of each patterned action;
Sing-along voice overs with a choice of male, female, or both options for harmonizing.

Reasons to return

The Royal Conservatory of Music wished to use this application as the first touch point with potential future music lovers, and as such, it was important that the experience was sticky. We wanted to create a bridge between the infant and early-childhood stages to the 3+ ages where kids could transition to other RCM applications. Through testing and tuning we landed on a multifacited strategy that included:

Gamifed experience with collectable stickers/badges earned through engagement;
Streaks and special bonuses rewards for pattened usage at similar times or regular intervals (e.g. incorporation into bedtime routines);
Fun and friendly custom crafted character animations for moments of delight;
Sing-along voice overs with a choice of male, female, or both options for harmonizing.
Time of day (AM, PM, Overnight) based display colors to keep experience engaging, this was introduced before iOS introduced Light/Dark modes;
“Did you Know?” science bites throughout application which when reached, unlocked larger articles and podcasts which can be consumed after the child is sleeping;
Notification nudges for inactive users.

Figure: Moments of delight

Figure: Notification Nudges

Outcome

The application was found to be very popular with parents and children, creating regular repeat engagements and receiving an app store rating of 4.5/5. We found 85% of parents, after completing one session, would return for multiple sessions during the week. The application extended from the initial single included album to include 3 additional album bundles available for purchase. Early data showed that approximately 50% of all return users purchased at least one additional album, with the majority purchasing multiple albums. Unfortunately, after 2 years in the app store, RCM made the decision to remove the application as they aimed to focus their efforts on their traditional music certificate program.