What started out as a casual conversation with my friends turned into a serious exploration. This was partially because I love SoundCloud, and partially because I needed to challenge myself in order to move forward in my career.

I started using SoundCloud obsessively back in 2013, and have since started using other streaming applications as well. SoundCloud is amazing. Whenever I go through its community, I can look forward to discovering so much new talent.

So I set out to redesign SoundCloud’s iOS app from the ground up, the way me and my friends would like it to be.

Part I — Starting from scratch

Iteration I

For the past six months, I couldn’t fight a feeling that SoundCloud had changed ever since they released their mobile platform. And not in a good way. When I would ask my friends how they felt about it, they’d get all worked up. We’d debate over what we still loved about it and what was going wrong; I’d get into deep conversations with my Lyft drivers; I’d discretely slip questions about SoundCloud into random discussions.

Lo and behold, I found that most of us avoided using it.

So, I became more and more curious… 🤔

Fry from Futrama

What made other mobile streaming applications stronger or weaker than SoundCloud? What were the details of our unhappiness? What needed to change? To gain insight, I expanded my streaming experience and started using Spotify and Apple Music, comparing and contrasting their strengths, weaknesses, and patterns. What elements and terms were universal across these streaming platforms?