The Guardian:
Universal Music Group’s Software Answer To Outdated, Clunky Administrative Protection Efforts

Problem: Communicating and coordinating information about releases and pre-releases label wide has historically been long, seemingly never ending series of emails where small details like dates, which track on an album is a single, updates to changing release schedules, etc., must be navigated. This has caused great strain to the heads of Content Protection, who have had to sift through said email chains, for years.

Solution: A portal to consolidate these administrative needs, uniquely designed for Content Protection’s specific business needs.

My Role: UX writer, researcher, tester, designer

Teammates: Matt Conlon, Daniel Litt, Ryan Christofferson, Vadprakash Rai, Ethan Karp

Duration: 2019 - Present

 

Style Guide

This is the style guide I designed that has informed the look and feel of The Guardian from its inception to this day.

We created a tapered shield logo, chose an assortment of fonts, and fought for a predominantly black/pink/purple color scheme.

 UX Writing

Home Page

Approval was given for the short copy to describe The Guardian on the home page:

“Content Protection, Leak Detection, & Anti-Piracy”

The same, but in Spanish.

“Protección de contenido, detección de fugas y antipiratería”

 7 Step Form Sequence Instructions

Our team developed a seven step form sequence for users to follow. I wrote instructions for each step, keeping our division heads’ voices in mind for tone while also keeping in mind that the final reader would be someone at a label in A&R, marketing, publicity, etc.

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 Notifications

Search Filters

In this section of The Guardian, we worked to streamline Content Protection’s needs and the users needs.

We ended up settling on dropdowns with the most simple options possible.

 

FAQ

 

In developing version 1.0 and 2.0 of The Guardian, our team saw a need for an FAQ section. I cowrote this very detailed section with my team.

One Sheet

 

My department heads wanted a simple one sheet to be able to send as an elevator pitch for our department to other labels.

I chose to write a mission statement and to break it down into “People, Process, Systems, and Analytics & Insights” and designed it with the style guidelines in mind.

 Emails

Guardian 2.0 was launched November 2021. I wrote descriptions of the new features sent out to the existing userbase.

Above is the follow up email.

Below, a third email updating users for schedule changes.

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