Project : Add a new (unexpected) feature to Shazam
For this new project, I was put in the situation of being in the middle of a hiring process at Shazam.
I passed with flying colors the last interview with the Head of HR and the design team now wants to test my skills with an at-home technical challenge. I will have one week to implement a new feature in the existing app in order to evaluate both my UX & UI skills by looking at how I incorporate this new feature into the existing platform based on user needs. And to make sure I don’t feel I am working for free, they are handing features that have nothing to do with their industry.
CHALLENGE
During this project, you are going to analyze an already existing and highly adopted app and incorporate a new feature into the existing product.
Your work will culminate in a high-fidelity prototype of a native app that reflects the flow of the happy path based on research, iteration, and testing.
I. QUICK REVIEW ABOUT SHAZAM
Having a song in mind, without knowing either his name or the artist … what a torture ! Fortunately, the Shazam audio recognition app is here to take that weight off our heads ! And it became the reflex in this situation, it even became a verb : “Shazamer” ! The holy grail for any brand.
It is not the giant Apple that is going to complain about it since it bought the firm in 2017 to take advantage of its technology but also of its huge database on the musical tastes of Shazam users and on trends in the different countries of the world. It is somewhere a return of good practices since Shazam, launched in 2002 in London, really took off with the launch of the iPhone and its Apple Store in 2008.
II. BUSINESS ANALYSIS
In order to examining the business’s needs and goals and create solutions that will deliver value to Shazam stakeholders I will go first through a business analysis process. To pinpoint the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats of some of the competitors, I will use two tools : a feature comparison and a market positioning.
A) Competitors analysis : Feature comparison
As you can see, I have here brought together 3 companies, in addition to Shazam, which have developed a music recognition system : SoundHound, Deezer and Recognize. This chart helps me compare how the competitors implement specific features.
I listed 9 of the most important features and highlighted some weaknesses in both competitors and Shazam :
- First of all, the Recognize app is clearly out of the game in this little comparison only responding to 3 features out of the 9 listed.
- The rest is more interesting because Shazam and Soundhound are very close to each other in terms of functionality, with a slight advantage to Soundhound which gives the possibility to its users to recognize music only by singing or even humming a forgotten song and that we try by any means to remember ! It is therefore a technology which at first glance seems more refined than that of Shazam.
- We will also note that Deezer has developed its own music recognition system, called “SongCatcher” (Android : 2017 ; iOS : 2019), in order to integrate it into its music streaming platform. This is a real breakthrough for Deezer which can boast of owning its system unlike Spotify for example.
B) Branding Benchmarking : Market positioning map
Also known as “Perceptual Mapping”, this tool is used to understand where a product or service is located based on specific qualities in the market : here BASIC / INNOVATIVE and INCONVENIENT / USER FRIENDLY.
We can see that Soundhound appears to be the leader in terms of innovation but Shazam is following him very closely. On the other hand, Shazam is alone in the lead in terms of user friendly, with Deezer which is never very far in this area.
The small gap therefore lies in the innovation part which must supplant Soundhound. The development of a more powerful voice recognition like the one implemented by SoundHound recognizing less precise sounds would clearly go in the direction of an improvement that we could turn into an opportunity.
III. USER RESEARCH
I decided to do quick interviews :
→ Most of them approve the idea of a better communication between pet owner and animal but the word « communicate » is still a bit vague at this point for them to be really excited about the potential feature.
→ They are torn between better understand the behavior of their animals, understand what they say when they bark for example and those who find the current situation not so bad.
III. BACK TO SECONDARY RESEARCH
ABOUT TECHNOLOGY :
- In the way a platform like Spotify works, music genres are emphasized less and less, people rely more on playlists that redefine classification codes : kind of “post-genre” era we could say ?
- Tech potential = voice recognition & imagery recognition that Shazam developed these last years so it could be crucial for this feature.
- In addition, Shazam has the advantage of being able to count on the financial and technological support of Apple, having been acquired in 2017.
ABOUT ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR :
- Music is a precious natural calming agent for our animals. It can even make them happy and give them energy ! On the contrary, other types of music may have a less beneficial effect.
- With the help of ethologists (animal behavior studies), musicologists and on the basis of facial recognition (think of Apple’s Face ID tech) and voice recognition (barking for instance) it is possible to develop a technology capable of understanding the mood of an animal by observing its attitude, posture and facial expressions.
- The pedigree also has a determining role in the dog or the cat in the general character and therefore in its behavior. However, this must be qualified by the major role of the education that the animal receives.
IV. How Might We…
How might we encourages pet owners and their animals to share a musical moment together adapted to their mood ?
→ Creating playlists would respond very well to this problem because of the popularity of playlists but also because of the already existing assets that Shazam has.
The playlist would be the result of the master’s musical tastes (via his Spotify account) and the animal’s mood and character.
V. USER FLOW
STEPS :
1 / The user arrives on the well-known Shazam homepage, a pop-up informs him that a brand new feature is available : ShazamThatPet!
2 / He wishes to discover it and is therefore redirected to the homepage of the feature which quickly explains what it consists of.
3 / In order to use it, we ask him to register his “Pet friend” since this is the first time he uses it.
4 / He has the choice between “Dog ID” and “Cat ID” : he chooses “Dog ID” being the owner of a dog. He then filled out a short form (dog’s name, age, breed, character traits, etc.)
5 / He can then use the camera to scan and analyze his pet.
6 / Information is communicated to him on the role of music on dogs and on the most suitable music for his dog.
7 / The application redirects him to the home page where he is told to press the CTA button to open the microphone and the camera to analyze his dog.
8 / He then locks the camera on his dog which validates that the analysis has worked well.
9 / The application, via Spotify, generates the “pawlist” based on the musical tastes of the user and adapted to the mood of his dog.
10 / The user can then share a good time with his pet who also enjoys the benefits of music !
VI. INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE
After creating a Mid-Fi, I carried out usability tests which allowed me to make some alterations and to arrive at the following Hi-Fi prototype :
