The GrooveArchive is a personal project born from my passion for dance and user-centered design. It aims to create a centralized, accessible resource for dancers of all styles and levels to explore, learn, and preserve the rich diversity of movement vocabulary. As I explore my next career move, this work-in-progress project allows me to bridge gaps in my professional UX experience, demonstrating my ability to conduct end-to-end research, design intuitive interfaces, and iterate on feedback—all while celebrating the art and history of dance.
Role
UX Research
UX Design
Team
Dana Dean: UX Designer
Kaizen Castanos: Developer
Overview
When I was laid off, I took the opportunity to reflect on my career and noticed a few gaps in my experience due to the unconventional path I had taken at Accenture. While I worked on many UX design projects, not all involved the full end-to-end design lifecycle. Some were more research-focused, particularly on user testing, while others leaned heavily into visual design. Certain projects didn’t involve collaboration with developers, and at times, I was more focused on project management than design. As I began searching for my next role, I wanted to address these gaps by gaining more experience with the complete design process and strengthening my collaboration with engineers.
To achieve this, I reached out to my network and connected with Kaizen, a developer who was also looking to build his skills and bridge gaps in his resume. As dancers, we shared a passion for our art form, which inspired the foundation of this project.
During our brainstorming sessions, we realized how challenging it can be for dancers to discover new moves, trace the names and historical context of steps, and organize the vast repertoire of movements. For example, when I choreograph, I strive to include hip-hop steps with proper names and historical context. However, I often hit a creative block, feeling limited to a handful of moves, even though I know there are many more out there.
This shared challenge sparked the idea for an online repository of dance moves, organized by dance style. To keep the project scope manageable, we decided to focus specifically on hip-hop and house steps. With our vision in place, we began the first stage of the design process: research.
Current Stage: User Research
When I started this project, I was eager to focus on research. During my time in consulting at Accenture, I gained incredible experiences, but towards the end, my work shifted more toward UX and UI design than research. The early stages of UX research have always been my favorite part of the design process, as they lay the foundation for creating meaningful solutions. To begin, I developed a comprehensive research plan to guide my exploration. To view the plan more closely, please see the link below. https://www.figma.com/design/GJNtZ9rZ9OCqfXWjddsq2x/Kaizen-x-Dana-Dance-Project?node-id=25-323&t=wKhqEzdhkmHYFquH-1
Survey Design
To start our research, we wanted to ensure our frustrations were shared by other dancers, validating the need for our product idea. The main questions we aimed to address were how dancers catalog information on dance moves and how they discover new ones. To explore this, I proposed conducting a survey. Surveys are an excellent way to quickly gather insights from a larger sample of users and identify emerging trends. These findings can then inform deeper qualitative research during user interviews.
To recruit participants, I leveraged my dance team’s community channel and shared the survey on my Instagram story, knowing that Instagram is a widely used platform among dancers. I received 20 responses—while I had hoped for more, it can be difficult to incentivize survey participation without a reward. With additional resources, I would have loved to offer gift cards to encourage more responses.