01
Listen first
Twenty interviews plus analytics mapped exactly where sessions broke down — mostly within the first ninety seconds.
← All work 
Cadence · Music streaming app
Rethinking the listening experience
Cadence had a loyal core of listeners but a cluttered app that buried the music. I rebuilt the experience around listening sessions — so opening the app feels like pressing play, not doing admin.
- Client
- Cadence
- Year
- 2025
- Role
- Product designer
- Platform
- iOS & Android
Overview
Cadence arrived with strong streaming numbers and a worrying trend: session length was falling while support tickets about “finding my music” kept climbing. The app had grown feature by feature over four years, and the home screen had become a noticeboard of playlists, podcasts, promotions and settings.
Over ten weeks I led research, definition and interface design for a ground-up rethink of the core listening flow — home, search and the player — working shoulder-to-shoulder with two Cadence engineers and a product manager.
The challenge
Interviews with twenty lapsed and active listeners surfaced the same frustration: the app demanded decisions before it offered music. New releases, mood-based mixes and a listener’s own library all competed for the same crowded screen, and the player itself hid queue management two taps deep.
The business constraint was just as real. Cadence monetises through premium upgrades, and any redesign had to keep discovery-led upsell moments intact without letting them interrupt the first minute of listening.
Approach
02
Define the session
Reframed the product around a “listening session” model: resume instantly, discover second, manage rarely.
03
Prototype the player
A tappable prototype of the new player and queue went through two rounds of testing with twelve listeners.
04
Ship in slices
Delivered as staged releases — player first, then home — so the team could measure each change in isolation.
Outcome
- Faster first playThe path from app-open to music dropped to a single decision, and testers consistently described the new home as “calm”.
- Queue, finally visibleUp-next management moved into the player sheet, ending the most-reported frustration in support tickets.
- Upsells that fitPremium moments now appear inside natural discovery pauses instead of blocking the listening flow.
