Traktor DJ2

TRAKTOR is music industry leader Native Instruments’ DJ offering. The Traktor DJ2 app is an evolution of its predecessor, and aims to allow everybody to mix anywhere. The intuitive workflow that intends to cater to both beginners and more experienced DJs. The software is was built from the ground up, and was created for desktop and iOS. It was Native Instruments’ first cross-product platform. TDJ2’s SoundCloud Go+ integration lets users choose from over 150 million tracks and both platform softwares are intended to work seamlessly with the all-in-one Traktor Kontrol S2 portable hardware.

Research and testing

I joined the TDJ2 team about 8 months prior to its first MVP release. At this point, there was no user feedback incorporated into the release process. To combat this, I setup an entirely new qualitative user research infrastructure to serve as a basis for ongoing user input. Using prior connections to the music industry, I sourced both beginner and expert users across Berlin, London and Los Angeles and conducted qualitative feedback sessions. The focus was to uncover key workflow usability breaks as well as first impressions. 

I also made it an explicit point to source a diverse and inclusive set of users to test with, something the company severely lacked up until that point.

Processing insights

To process the results from testing, the insights were coded according to usability break (low - medium - high in priority) as well as occurrence. Additionally, key recurring statements were grouped into categories. The result was a systematic approach to research results that fed into over 50+ new items for the backlog, as well as a basis to prioritise features. Later on in the process, we were also able to elicit user feedback through TestFlight.

Interaction design

As a part of an embedded product team, I also worked on redesigning features from the previous app that needed it. An example is beat grid editing, a complex interaction where users have to correct any beat analysis that the software has done wrongly, in order for seamless mixing to be enabled. The general process was to sketch out results by hand, into digital design and interactive prototyping. Additionally, all interaction design in the software had to be mapped to inuitive interactions for Traktor hardware controllers. I used Framer to create interactive prototypes, which can be seen below. We tested micro-interactions internally and iterated on insights from this.

Digital sketches

Interactive prototypes

Onboarding UX

Across Native Instruments products, it was a known issue that both its hardware and software products had a high threshold for new users to get initiated into the ecosystem. Due to many products not having an onboarding infrastructure in place, I led a cross-company workgroup that reported into the C-level to create a design strategy to tackle this. I held stakeholder interviews, heuristic analyses of key workflows and an experience map across products.

The results fed into the company’s high level product strategy. Additionally, for Traktor DJ2 it meant a collaborative session with marketing to uncover that new users respond better to recognisable content. The result was pre-curated Soundcloud playlists by key industry DJs that were used to onboard new users into the app.

6. Launch

Traktor DJ2’s first release shipped in June 2019. More beginner DJs are getting onboarded into the new Traktor ecosystem every day.

Other details

Company – Native Instruments
Year – 2019