🎤 BET350 · Academic Project · 8 min read

Building Confidence, Not Just Skills

My friends wanted to sing but were too terrified to practice. This personal frustration with the "talent myth" led to Resonate—a tool designed to make failure feel safe.

Role Product Designer
Timeline Sept – Dec 2023
Team 6 Members
Tools Figma
Resonate App Mockup

The Resonate mobile app interface

⚡ TL;DR

Beginner singers don't need better tools—they need emotional safety. Resonate removes the social pressure from singing through guided loops, visual feedback, and encouraging copy. The result: users described it as "motivating" and "easy to follow."

27 Voices Heard
78% Wanted Reminders
5 Prototype Rounds
01

The Story

"Every video is from a pro. I need someone to tell me when my version is good enough."

The project started from a simple observation: people who love singing rarely practice. Not because of time or ability, but because of fear. Fear of sounding bad. Fear of reinforcing mistakes. Fear of being judged, even by themselves.

Through conversations with 27 beginner singers, I uncovered a pattern. The moment practice felt "exposed", they stopped. YouTube tutorials from professionals only made them feel worse. They needed encouragement, not criticism.

"I stop when I feel silly. Even alone, I judge myself."

— Interview Participant
The Insight

Beginners don't need better tools. They need emotional safety. Skill-building and confidence-building are inseparable.

🎵

Affinity map — Under construction learning motion design ⚠️

02

The Challenge

How Might We

Help beginner singers overcome the fear of judgment and build a consistent, private practice routine?

Design Pillars

01

Make Practice Feel "Safe"

Remove social pressure and judgment from the experience entirely.

02

Provide Instant Feedback

Objective, visual feedback that doesn't require musical knowledge.

03

Visualize Invisible Progress

Show growth over time without punishing missed days.

The Confidence Cycle We Needed to Break

❓

No Feedback

"Am I doing this right?"

😰

Low Confidence

Fear of reinforcing mistakes

📉

Inconsistent Practice

Avoidance due to anxiety

🛑

Stagnation

Eventual abandonment

03

Research & Discovery

I conducted 15 interviews with "closet singers"—people who love to sing but never do it publicly. These conversations revealed patterns that shaped every design decision.

27 Voices Heard
15 Deep Interviews
5 Prototype Rounds
78% Wanted Reminders

Key Patterns

01
"I don't know if I'm getting better."

Beginners lack the ear to self-critique. Without a teacher, they fear reinforcing bad habits. They needed objective proof of accuracy.

02
"I stop when I feel silly."

The biggest barrier wasn't time or ability. It was emotional safety. Practice sessions ended the moment they felt judged, even by themselves.

03
"Streaks make me feel guilty."

Popular gamification patterns backfired. Missing a day felt like failure, leading to complete abandonment rather than resumption.

📊

User research synthesis — Under construction learning motion design ⚠️

04

The Solution

A Safe Space to Fail

Resonate is a mobile companion that removes the social pressure from singing. Through guided loops and visual feedback, users learn to trust their own voice at their own pace.

Feature 01

Personalized Guidance

Adaptive exercises that calibrate to the user's current vocal range, ensuring they never feel "out of their depth."

Why this matters: Reduces overwhelm and decision fatigue by removing the "what should I practice?" question.
Personalized guidance screen
Feature 02

Low-Stakes Practice Loop

A closed, 3-step practice loop that reduces decision fatigue. Just hit play, sing, and finish. Three minutes, no pressure.

Why this matters: Based on BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits model—consistency beats intensity for beginners.
Practice loop interface
Feature 03

Skill Tree Progress

Moving from punitive "streaks" to a "Skill Tree" model that shows effort accumulating over time, not just daily attendance.

Why this matters: Reduces guilt from missed days while still celebrating consistent effort.
Skill tree progress view
Feature 04

Encouraging Copy

Every piece of feedback is written to feel supportive, not critical. "Great start!" instead of "Off-pitch."

Why this matters: Tone shapes behavior. Encouraging language increases return rate by reducing anxiety.
Encouraging feedback screen
05

Design Process

Every design decision was filtered through one question: "Does this make the user feel more or less confident?" This constraint shaped everything from color choices to microcopy.

The App Is

  • For building confidence through repetition
  • For providing simple, visual pitch matching
  • Meant for 5-minute "micro-practice" sessions
  • A private, judgment-free companion

The App Is Not

  • A replacement for a professional vocal coach
  • A comprehensive music theory course
  • A social network for sharing performances
  • A tool for advanced singers

Design System

Resonate design system

Color palette and typography designed for calm, encouraging interactions

Experience It Yourself

The best way to understand Resonate is to walk through the flow. Notice how every interaction is designed to encourage, not critique.

Open full prototype ↗
06

Reflection & Impact

📈 "Encouraging" User Feedback
⏱️ "Easy to follow" User Feedback
💪 "Motivating" User Feedback

What I Learned

The biggest lesson was that emotional ergonomics are just as real as physical ones. Designing for how a user feels—not just what they do—yields better retention and genuine behavior change.

🧠

Emotional Safety First

Users need to feel safe before they can learn. Lowering the stakes increases engagement more than adding features.

🎯

Permission to Fail

Beginners need permission to fail more than they need perfect tools. Making failure feel okay is the design challenge.

📊

Gamification Can Backfire

Popular patterns like streaks can backfire for emotionally vulnerable activities. Guilt-based motivation isn't motivation.

🔮

If I Revisited This Project...

Ideas for future exploration

01
Real-Time AI Pitch Analysis
Explore instant visual feedback that shows users exactly how their voice matches the target pitch.
🤖 AI/ML
02
Safe Peer Feedback
Test how peer-to-peer feedback could be introduced without triggering performance anxiety.
👥 Community
03
Longitudinal Confidence Study
Build a research framework to measure how confidence changes over weeks and months of practice.
📈 Research
04
Vocal Coach Partnership
Partner with professional vocal coaches to validate and refine the pedagogical approach.
🎤 Validation