Case Study
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Product Design
A Multi-Platform Redesign Driving 66% Growth
Expanding a mobile-first music service into a ubiquitous ecosystem across TV, Auto, and Wearables.
TL:DR
Problem: Our strategy to become users’ primary music service was failing. While our mobile app was the flagship, its stagnating engagement (Library: 5.2%) revealed we were only serving users in one context. To unlock the next phase of growth, we needed to evolve from a single-point mobile application into a ubiquitous, multi-platform ecosystem.
My Role: Lead Product Designer — Owned strategy and execution for core mobile, launched 0-to-1 TV apps, designed Wear OS and Android Auto / CarPlay experiences, and delivered a critical Label Dashboard for finance.
Action: Led a customer-obsessed, data-driven redesign of the mobile ecosystem and expanded our service into four new platform environments, creating a seamless, ubiquitous music experience.
Outcome: Drove mobile engagement lifts: Library +69%, Search-to-Play +29%. Grew subscribers from 1.2M to 2.0M (+66%). Successfully launched the TV app and designed for in-car infotainment, while building a dashboard that reduced label payout processing time by 50%.
1. One-line summary
Strategic design lead who delivered 66% subscriber growth through a mobile redesign and expanded the service into a multi-platform ecosystem (TV, Auto, Wearables) from 0 to 1, while building internal tools that streamlined critical business operations.
2. Context & Scope
Product: Gaana (a leading Indian music streaming service)
Scope: End-to-end ownership across multiple domains
Platform Expansion: Led design for new Android TV, Automotives (Android Auto, CarPlay), and Wear OS apps.
Internal Tools: Designed the Label Dashboard for the Finance and Content teams.
Timeline: 6-month period for core initiatives
Team: Partnered with PMs, Engineers, Data Scientists, and Finance stakeholders.
3. Problem & Goals
Core Mobile Problem: The app was a collection of disjointed features, not a cohesive ecosystem, creating friction for millions of users and capping growth at 1.2M subscribers.
Strategic Expansion Problem: To remain competitive and ubiquitous, Gaana needed to expand beyond mobile into living rooms, cars, and wearables, requiring a platform-agnostic design strategy.
Business Operations Problem: The finance team relied on manual, error-prone processes to calculate royalty payouts for music labels, leading to delays and disputes.
Goals
• Increase mobile engagement and subscriber growth.
• Launch a high-quality, intuitive TV experience on major platforms.
• Design a safe, driver-optimized experience for in-car infotainment systems.
• Design a scalable framework for wearable devices.
• Automate and bring transparency to the label payout process.
4. Solutions & Key Initiatives
1. Core Mobile Redesign
• Action: Transformed key surfaces with a focus on personalization, vernacular support, and frictionless interaction. Introduced haptic feedback and gestures.
• Visuals
- Library: From a flat list to a tabbed interface with smart buckets.
- Search: From static to predictive with voice input.
- Player: From basic to rich with lyrics, sharing, and related content.
Updated mobile player with adaptive background colors.
2. 0-to-1 TV App Launch
Action: Designed a 10-foot UI experience from the ground up for Android TV. Focused on ease of navigation with a remote, large text, and high-contrast visuals for living room environments.
Visuals: Key screens showcasing the home screen, now playing view, and search experience optimized for TV.
Android TV App
3. Android Auto & CarPlay
Action: Designed a driver-first experience adhering to strict platform human interface guidelines. Prioritized safety and glanceability with large, tactile targets, simplified voice-controlled search, and a hierarchical information structure that minimizes cognitive load while driving.
Visuals: Key screens of the in-car interface showing the now-playing screen, simplified browse view, and voice interaction prompt.
4. Wear OS App Design
Action: Designed a companion app focused on glanceability and voice-first control. Prioritized offline download playback, voice search, and core controls (play, pause, skip) for a on-the-go experience.
Visuals: Key frames of the watch app UI showing the now-playing screen, voice search activation, and offline library.
5. Label Dashboard for Finance
Action: Conducted workshops with finance and content teams to understand the payout workflow. Designed a comprehensive dashboard that automated data aggregation, visualized earnings by artist and label, and generated exportable reports for reconciliation.
Visuals: An anonymized version of the dashboard interface, highlighting key data visualizations like streams demography, top-performing artists, and summary stats.
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6. Results
Additional Insights
Android TV App: Successfully launched on TV platform, achieving a 4.2/5 average rating on launch.
Auto Experience: Auto Experience: Completed and delivered designs for Android Auto and CarPlay, expanding service accessibility to a critical user context.
Haptics & Gestures: Drove a ~15% increase in core interactions like play/pause and like.
Business Impact: The Label Dashboard eliminated manual errors and provided unprecedented transparency for label negotiations.
6. Lessons & Next Steps
Ubiquitous Ecosystem Thinking: A leading music service must be everywhere the user is. Designing for mobile, TV, auto, and wearables requires a deep understanding of context, constraints, and platform-specific patterns.
Safety as a Design Principle: Designing for in-car systems fundamentally shifts priorities to safety and minimal cognitive load, a challenging and invaluable skillset.
Business Acumen: The highest-impact design work often solves problems beyond the end-user, directly improving internal operations and revenue streams.
Next Steps: Expanding the design system to unify the cross-platform experience further and exploring generative AI for hyper-personalized playlist creation.
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