Redesigning song navigation for easier discoverability
Product Design Intern · May – August 2025
Overview
Users saw one song. Lingotune had an entire library.
Lingotune teaches languages through music, pairing songs with short lessons designed to make vocabulary and grammar easier to remember.
Users were landing on Lingotune’s song lesson page, seeing one card, and thinking that was it. In under a week, I worked with another designer and the founder to rethink the browsing interaction around what users were already trying to do. The update shipped in the next release.
Problem
More songs existed, but the interface didn’t make that clear.
The original screen showed one song at a time, with arrows to browse. But after reviewing ~20 UXCam sessions, I kept seeing the same disconnect:
Users were trying to swipe
They reached for a familiar gesture before using the arrows.
Users stopped at the first song
The arrows were easy to miss, and nothing else on the screen matched the browsing patterns users already knew. Without a clear cue to keep going, many assumed the first song was all there was.
💡 At first, I thought the arrows needed fixing. But the bigger issue was that users didn’t realize there was a collection to browse at all.
Constraints
Move fast, without rebuilding the experience.
⏳ < 1 week
Users were already raising issues, so the turnaround needed to be quick.
🎶 Keep the existing song cards
The solution had to work around the current content structure rather than redesigning it from scratch.
🗒️ Work within the existing design system
New patterns still had to feel native to Lingotune, so I designed within the product's existing components and visual language rather than introducing a totally new system.
👤👤👤 Small team, fast decisions
I worked with another designer and closely with the founder to move from findings to direction quickly.
Exploration
The obvious fix wasn't enough.
I sketched several directions to make more songs easier to discover before moving into hi-fi.
Bigger arrows
The smallest change, but they still relied on the same interaction users were already overlooking.
Vertical feed
More songs would be visible at once, but it competed with the page's existing vertical scroll.
Horizontal Carousel
It preserved the existing cards, separated browsing from page navigation, and matched the swipe behavior I was already seeing in UXCam.
Decision
I followed the behavior users were already showing me.
The horizontal carousel matched the swipe behavior I saw in UXCam, preserved the existing song cards, and kept browsing separate from the page’s vertical scroll.
Swipe for browsing
How users browse.
Peeking cards for discovering
How they know there's more.
Pagination for orientation
How they know where they are.
Solution
01 Swipe to browse
Horizontal swipe matched the behavior users were already attempting in UXCam. Instead of finding a control first, they could browse with a gesture they already understood.
02 Show what's next
I exposed parts of the neighboring cards so users could see immediately that more songs existed. The layout itself became the cue to keep going.
03 Keep users oriented
Pagination gives lightweight feedback once users start browsing.
The peeking cards answer "is there more?" The dots answer "where am I?"
Outcome
The redesign shipped in the next release.
The team approved the direction, and my redesigned song browsing experience shipped in Lingotune's next release.
While I didn't have access to post-launch metrics, if I continued measuring this release, I'd track:
Browse Depth
Do more users move beyond the first song?
Lesson Starts
Does browsing lead more users into lessons?
Screen Drop-Off
Are fewer users leaving the app at this point?
Reflection
What I learned!
Sometimes the answer is already in the behavior.
The best UX often isn't inventing something new. It's noticing the mental models users already carry into your product and designing with them, not against them.