Product design for a rhythm-training app
Cadence
Overview
A metronome that people actually kept using, which turned out to be a behaviour problem rather than an interface one.
01 Challenge
Cadence had good retention on day one and almost none by week three. The team assumed the interface was the problem and had redesigned it twice. The analytics said otherwise: people were not failing to use the app, they were succeeding and then having no reason to come back.
02 Approach
We ran eleven sessions with musicians at different levels and found the same thing each time — practice is a habit with a shape, and the app had no opinion about that shape. The redesign added the smallest possible structure: a session that ends, a record of what you did, and one suggestion for next time. Visually almost nothing changed, which was an argument worth having.
03 Outcome
Week-three retention moved from 6% to 31% on the first release of the new session model. The interface redesign that had been planned for the following quarter was cancelled.
Results