Cassette.tech is a web application that converts songs and playlists from one streaming platform to another, allowing users to share music across platforms without any limits. In other words, this application is the glue that keeps a relationship alive between the Spotify girlies and the Apple Music bros.
While this may seem like yet another playlist app, Cassette’s real value is serving as a bridge between streaming platforms that don’t talk to each other, which has not yet been created. I was brought on board by the founders (CEO and CTO) in order to bring this vision to life.
Cassette has a live and functioning prototype that demonstrates the conversion functionality, but will soon (as of March 2025) be releasing a full web application MVP. There is currently a live version with older UI.
My Roles
Web Design
Product Design
Product Management/Strategy Development
Brand/Visual Design
UX writing/Copywriting
Stakeholders
CTO
CEO (de-facto Head of Product)
Marketing Manager
Angel Investor
Outcome and Impact
While my work received rave reviews from the stakeholders involved and the style guide created has sped up engineering operations, currently there isn’t much to discuss regarding outcomes.
To judge the impact of these designs against previous designs obtained by founders from other 3rd-party contractors, I would examine whether sharing of songs or playlists, particularly on top streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple Music, had increased as a result of the new and improved UI. I would also track whether there has been an increase in the app’s converted links.
Prior Design Efforts from Other Contractors
The team had previously worked with 3rd-party contractors weren’t quite able to produce solutions meeting the standard of visual quality required by the Cassette co-founders. The team also believed that these iterations did not accurately reflect their desired aesthetic or vision for the product.
Founders’ Vision / Desired Aesthetic
The team indicated in early conversations that they wanted to see an application with components that gave off a vintage, 80s or 90s aesthetic, while also remaining clean, minimal, and accessibility.
I chose accent colors to the beige and red colors, and drew on my previous work with Pizza Wallet to create a playful, retro-inspired design aesthetic with a modern twist.
The "cassette" logo, made from the Teko font, uses a bold, blocky, 3D-style with colorful, layered outlines reminiscent of vintage 80s and 90s designs. The rest of the text, using Atkinson Hyperbole, is clean and minimal, balancing the overall vibe.
Landing Page
The Cassette founders’ direction was to keep the landing page clean, minimal, and focused on users and page visitors converting songs and playlist links to other platforms. Rather than a longer lander espousing the various benefits of using Cassette, the founders prioritized app interaction and usage, and a clear, upfront presentation of the app’s value proposition.
Music Pages
There isn’t much to change from typical UI patterns you see in Apple Music and Spotify when creating the music pages for this application. The page features a beige-to-white gradient for a visually-enticing song list, with color highlights at the top of the page pulled from the song/album/playlist currently playing. The goal for these pages was to keep them focused on the essential functions: playing music, going to a user’s profile, and loading the music in a streaming platform of one’s choice.
User Profile
We saw the user profile as the landing spot users would be directed to once they log back into the application. Like other areas of the app, we elected to keep functionality minimal, with the ability to play music, share one’s profile and individual music items, and convert new music links to be added to one’s profile.
Edit Profile
In addition to the ability to edit one’s profile, we needed a place in the application for users to be able to connect different streaming services, which allows users to upload all of their songs and playlists to their Cassette account.
The dark module allows users to easily add and delete connected streaming accounts.
Next Steps
The application is currently in development. While next steps regarding design will likely be determined after launch, one can expect to see updates to the profile structure to allow for additional functionality on desktop, as well as other streaming sites such as SoundCloud to be available to bridge to.
Curious to learn more? Go to Cassette.tech
Like what you see or want to chat? Please contact me.
raj@rssdesign.org
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