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By Jane Sun on August, 2017

With the concept confirmed, Part A focused on translating the idea into a concrete design direction. The two homepage mockups shown above represent this exploration: the first took a modern aesthetic to reflect the project's technological novelty, while the second — the direction we ultimately adopted — leaned into a vintage style to honour the historical character of the Queensland music archive. The primary visual inspiration came from the award-winning website A State of War. From there, I defined the project scope, conducted background research, and produced the initial interface designs for the core pages. I also led the content structure definition and technical solution research documented in the concept brief.

Process: Following the concept phase, the team was formalised and the Queensland Music Box was confirmed as the project direction. The design process adopted a User-Centred Design framework. With the sitemap established and key interfaces defined, the team prepared for early user testing using a paper prototype.

Reflection: The core challenge at this stage was balancing design ambition with technical feasibility. Feedback on the concept document rightly pointed toward a deeper understanding of our target users and more grounded project planning. In hindsight, the risk analysis needed more rigour — particularly around the music transcription pipeline — and the conceptual model required a round of user validation before moving to implementation. Both were addressed through the testing sessions documented in Part B.