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Product Case Study / Browser Extension Prototype
Crate & Dig: Designing a Workflow for Music Discovery
A working browser extension prototype that turns scattered digging into a lightweight system for capturing tracks, understanding tempo, saving context, and building crates.
RoleProduct Designer / Builder
PrototypeChrome + Brave extension
GoalBuild better creative tools
The Problem
Music discovery is everywhere. Music memory is scattered.
Getting into DJing exposed a workflow problem: finding music is not the same thing as building a library. Tracks live across YouTube, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, DJ pools, streaming apps, radio shows, blogs, and long-form sets.
The more you dig, the easier it is to lose the context that made a track matter. Crate & Dig gives digging a memory.
Origin
Built from my own digging problem.
I was learning the craft of DJing and needed a way to move faster without losing the human part of discovery. I did not want another heavy app. I wanted something that stayed out of the way until I needed it.
The best tools disappear into the workflow. Discovery should be fast, lightweight, and non-disruptive.
The Product
A lightweight crate that follows the music.
Crate & Dig detects music across supported sites, preserves listening history, shows tempo context, lets users save tracks into crates, adds tags, supports export, and opens source-aware ownership paths.
Now Playing captureRecently Played historyBPM / BPM rangesSave to cratesQuick tagsTrack IDs from DJ setsSource-aware Buy / OwnCSV / JSON exportSource finderCross-tab persistence
Interactive Demo
Try the digging workflow.
This is a simulated version of the extension flow. The actual product runs as a browser extension; this demo lets visitors feel the workflow without installing anything.
Export preview
A lightweight export turns a digging session into something the user can review, share, or bring into another workflow.
title,artist,source,bpm,crate,tags
Video Walkthrough
Add a short demo video here showing the real extension running across a music site, saving a track, showing BPM, and exporting a crate.
Supported Digging Map
DJs do not dig in one place.
Crate & Dig was designed around the reality that discovery happens across stores, DJ pools, radio, blogs, sample tools, and streaming platforms.
BPM as Learning Tool
Tempo became part of the learning system.
BPM was not just metadata. It helped build instinct around what different tempos feel like and where I naturally wanted to play.
84 BPM / sample pocket92 BPM / warm-up104 BPM / groove118 BPM / movement126 BPM / club peak
The Hard Part
Simple on the surface. Messy underneath.
The product problem was not only capturing metadata. It was making the tool useful without becoming another distraction.
Metadata capture is messy
Every platform exposes track information differently. The extension needed adapters, selector fallbacks, media-session metadata, and document-title parsing.
source -> media element -> track metadata selectors -> mediaSession -> meta tags -> title parsing
Code Notes
Show the thinking, not the whole product.
This public case study should include short, representative code snippets and architecture notes without publishing the full implementation. The goal is to prove technical judgment while protecting the product idea.
// Adapter idea source -> media element -> track metadata selectors -> mediaSession -> meta tags -> title parsing
// Storage idea content scripts stay lightweight service worker handles state, dedupe, crates, exports
What I Learned
Small tools can change the learning curve.
Crate & Dig taught me that simple, well-built tools can have an outsized impact on a learning journey. The product did not need to replace DJ software. It needed to make the first mile of discovery less chaotic.
The right tool does not make the creative decision for you. It preserves the moment when the decision starts to form.
Future Direction
The extension is the first surface.
The larger vision is a full music-library workflow for discovery, organization, set-building, ownership, and creative memory. The case study starts where the pain was clearest: the browser.
Build better creative tools
Need a product that understands the real workflow, not just the feature list?
I help teams turn niche creative behavior into lightweight, useful products people actually want to keep using.