As part of my journey to explore UX design in mobile apps, I was inspired to create a concept that would combine music with the simplicity of BeReal. The French photo-sharing app gained traction throughout the COVID-19 pandemic for the authenticity in its goal to remove the "fakeness" of social media and share in-the-moment snapshots of daily life. I was passionate about seeing how this approach could extend to music, and how users could be encouraged to contribute to something that didn't rely on algorithms or curated profiles.

Given BeReal was a highly influential part of developing Muji’s concept, I wanted to understand what drew users to it as opposed to other social media apps. I started by analyzing its functionality as a photo-sharing platform; based on reviews from users, I identified four key issues:

Although some of these issues were predominantly related to photo-sharing, the core problems stemmed from a general lack of attention to user experience and not understanding the needs of users. The app continues to gain new users daily, but existing ones are ditching BeReal for other platforms.

Based on market research, only two existing apps embodied the concept of daily music-sharing:

Both apps had very few reviews and downloads compared to streaming giants, which can be attributed to the following factors: lack of funding or resources for development; being overshadowed by more popular music apps; or the app's theme is not as popular with users than expected.