Mosi Nova

Nova is a MIDI controller built from the ground up to give synth artists expressive control usually only found in acoustic instruments. It is designed to push creative boundaries, both in the studio and on stage.

While Nova’s hardware and features are appealing, the product lacked direction. There were no well defined target users and without this foundation, decisions around feature prioritization and design felt scattered. Nova needed a structured UX audit and product strategy to move forward with clarity.

Nova was already being showcased at exhibits like Synth & Paddle and Maker Faire. During its showcase at OpenSauce 2024, guerrilla testing and mixed-methods surveys were conducted to capture early impressions and begin identifying potential user groups.

These initial insights were followed up with in-person synchronous usability sessions with interested users (potential customers), alongside interviews with existing users. This layered approach helped define key personas, uncover usability challenges, and surface feature priorities and design recommendations grounded in real-world usage.

By combining survey responses and field notes from guerrilla testing, recurring behaviors and priorities began to surface across different types of users.

These patterns were synthesized into two representative personas, each reflecting distinct workflows, goals, and frustrations observed in the research.

Nova had an extensive feature backlog, along with new requests surfaced during the research phase. To align future development with user needs, a weighted scoring prioritization framework was used to evaluate and map features based on user sentiment.

A full list of features, both planned and requested, was evaluated using qualitative feedback gathered from usability sessions with potential users and semi-structured interviews with existing Nova users. Each feature was scored based on user sentiment.

• Liked: Feature explicitly requested or appreciated
• Neutral: Feature mentioned passively or without strong reaction
• Disliked: Feature explicitly rejected or found unnecessary

The further right a feature appears on the matrix, the more users expressed interest in it. The higher it sits, the more positively it is received overall.

• Top-right = high impact.
• Lower-left = low impact.

Features were hence ranked by impact, bringing clarity to Nova’s future roadmap and aligning upcoming development with what matters most to users.

The impact-ranked features can now be layered with effort estimates to form an Impact–Effort Matrix. This will help refine delivery timelines and identify low-hanging wins versus longer-term investments.

With the key features now prioritized and mapped to real user needs, the next step is to design the actual flows, interactions, and touchpoints these features will require.

A journey mapping exercise, carried out by other team members based on the research conducted, revealed that Nova’s only validation touchpoint post-discovery is the e-commerce storefront. Its current lack of structure and visual consistency weakens user confidence. Improving this storefront experience will reinforce Nova’s value proposition at a critical moment.

This project was a valuable learning experience in working with diverse research methods, especially fast-paced approaches like guerrilla testing in live environments. It highlighted how much insight can be gathered even in less controlled settings when observation and synthesis are intentional.