Melissa Guimaraes Design Portfolio

Composer Timelines for Apple Music Classical

A personal UX exploration of how storytelling and interactivity can bring classical music closer to new audiences.

Project Overview

Apple Music Classical is a beautifully curated space for classical music lovers. However, its current experience caters largely to connoisseurs who already know the music, the composers, and the history. As a product designer with a passion for storytelling, I set out to explore how we might create a more approachable, educational experience for newcomers and curious listeners alike.

This self-initiated project proposes a new feature: an interactive composer timeline, accessible directly from a composer's page. The timeline visually maps a composer’s life, key events, and their evolving body of work — with the added ability to instantly listen to their compositions in context.

Opportunity

Classical music can often feel distant or inaccessible to those unfamiliar with its structure, history, or key figures. While rich in metadata and curated recordings, the app doesn’t currently offer a simple way to explore the human stories behind the music.

Key challenges identified:

Most users are already knowledgeable or passionate about classical music.
There’s limited educational context for newer audiences.
Composer pages lack narrative or historical storytelling.

Design challenge:
How might we help users—especially newcomers—connect more deeply with classical music by telling the story of the composers behind it?

The idea

Vertical Timeline

The concept is a vertical composer timeline: a narrative-driven, scrollable interface that offers an engaging way to explore a composer's life, compositions, and influences over time.

Each timeline starts at the composer’s birth and unfolds chronologically with:

Key life events (e.g., education, travels, relationships)
Major works shown in context with the year they were composed
Musical previews of those pieces, playable directly from the timeline
Notable influences and connections with other composers or historical figures

This feature would be accessible directly from any composer’s page and designed to feel like a mix between a digital biography and an interactive listening experience.

Entry Points & UX Flow

I explored different ways users could access this feature, aiming to keep it discoverable yet non-intrusive.

From Accessory

An accessory added to the top of the composer page, next to the Favourite button.

From Details

A chevron added after the composer's time of birth and death.

From Biography

The entry point could come from the existing 'More' button under Biography.

Exploring the Transition Experience

As part of the flow, I explored how this timeline feature should appear after the user taps the entry point.
The goal was to create an experience that feels intentional and immersive, while still aligning with the overall Apple Music Classical interface.

A modal overlay that keeps the user anchored in the current context.

A temporary bottom sheet or slide-up card, similar to existing Apple Music interactions.

A similar take to Apple Books, where the bottom sheet does not occupy the full screen until the user starts scrolling up.

Design Explorations

The timeline interface was designed to be minimalist and intuitive, with content grouped by year and visual cues to guide the eye.

Key design decisions:

Vertical scroll to mimic a traditional timeline while aligning with mobile reading habits.
A simple and clean look, using the accent colour only to accentuate time period sections.
Insights with visual cues of other related known classical figures.
Expandable details for users who want more context without overwhelming the casual viewer.

Adding Interactivity Through Music

A key part of this concept was bringing the timeline to life — not just through text or visuals, but through sound. Since Apple Music Classical is first and foremost a listening app, I wanted to integrate an interactive layer that allows users to preview or listen to a composer's work directly from their timeline.

Listening to Works

Each work shown in the timeline includes a play button, letting users:

Play the full piece performed by one of the artists featured in the app..
Or tap through to go into a collection of tracks from different players within the same work.

This adds a rhythm to the experience — users can scroll, pause to listen, and continue exploring. The aim is to blur the line between passive learning and active listening.

Design considerations:

Playback should feel lightweight and embedded, not disruptive.
The music player could follow Apple Music’s mini-player style for consistency.
Metadata (e.g., performer, orchestra, recording year) would appear when clicked through.

By letting users hear the music in the moment it was created, this feature transforms a static timeline into a multi-sensory experience — deepening emotional connection and historical understanding.

Outcomes & Reflections

Takeaways

This project helped me explore how narrative design and interaction can enrich content-heavy applications. Balancing educational depth with interface simplicity was one of the biggest challenges — but also the most rewarding.

It reinforced a few key principles:

Interactivity can enhance learning, not distract from it.
Entry points and discoverability matter as much as the core experience.
Good design invites curiosity, especially in spaces traditionally seen as “serious” or inaccessible.

Next Steps

Introducing timeline comparisons to explore relationships between composers.

Creating thematic journeys (e.g., “Romantic Era,” “Child Prodigies”) to group multiple composers.

Allowing users to bookmark or follow a timeline and receive occasional prompts or pieces to listen to from that era.

Thank you for exploring my design journey!

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