Context:

• Launched in 2002, Shazam made a name for itself as a music search engine capable of discerning the title and artist of almost any song in a matter of seconds.
• Despite boasting over 300 million monthly active users, research indicates that the most common use case of Shazam lasts less than half a minute - suggesting that users are using the app to identify a song, then immediately bounce to a different app to collect or listen to the song.

The Objective:

• Increase app engagement and decrease bounce-off rate.

Research Summary:

• User interviews and usability testing on the original Shazam app.
• Heuristic evaluation and competitive analysis to complement user research.
• Further two rounds of usability testing on our Shazam mid-fidelity and hi-fidelity prototypes.
• The most pressing problem derived from user research: users were leaving Shazam to access additional music-streaming features, disrupting their music experience.

The Solution: 

• Integration of the user's music streaming library into the Shazam app itself, eliminating the need for users to navigate elsewhere to meet their music streaming needs.
• Improved feature visibility on our hi-fidelity Android prototype to allow users to acknowledge what they could do with the app. 
• Incorporation of an additional feature into the app itself: users can add an identified song to a custom playlist in their music library.
• The redesign successfully addressed user pain points with an increase in ease-of-use rating, from 3.2/5 (original app) to 4.4/5 (new prototype).

Tools:

• Figma & Maze (Usability Testing tool).