About SongPop
SongPop was launched in 2012 as a Flash game on Facebook and went viral. Enrique Iglesias, Bon Jovi, and Alanis Morisette all tweeted about it, and it even garnered a mention on the tv show Glee. Over a decade and 130 million players later, loyal fans still devote countless hours to the game around the world.
I joined FreshPlanet in 2020 as their first full-time Creative Director and grew the creative team of UI/UX designers, animators, and illustrators across NYC, Montreal, and Toronto. The original game (now known as SongPop Classic) was loved by many but buried in unduly complex legacy code and Flash files. FreshPlanet was now building a modern version from scratch on a framework that I had designed for before. At the same time, SongPop Party was ramping up for consoles.
My Impact
👍 Increased subscriptions via music library exploration
I initiated A/B tests that encouraged free-tier users to subscribe by discovering the full breadth of the music library. We saw a revenue boost as non-paying users were choosing to watch more rewarded ads to play more recommended playlists.
👍 Drove more in-app purchases via Shop re-designs
I led the Shop redesign and A/B tests to determine the most effective layouts. We adopted the layout without tabs as it drove coin pack and powerup purchases, and saw more conversions on the subscription button when we removed the price from it.
👍 Removed a ton of friction our flagship Live Trivia feature
Our analytics showed way too many cancelled sessions, I worked with front and back-end engineers to re-write and re-design game initiation flows. Invitations became easier to send, and joining/ending a Live session became a lot less confusing.
👍 Launched the Live Show feature
We rebuilt the Live Show, previously an entirely separate app, as a feature integrated into the economy and meta game of the new SongPop, creating custom content for 30+ music genres.
Look and Feel
I decided to keep Classic’s flat vector style but elevated it with soft gradients and barely-there shadows, making the UI appear lit from within. I also created the design system infrastructure (this was before Figma variables were invented) to swap themes based on music genres and event-themed app skins by cobbling together a series of plugins and processes.
Tools and Process
I migrated the team from Adobe XD to Figma and we settled on Lottie for our animation pipeline (and started eyeing Rive). We also swapped Basecamp for Dropbox Paper for our feedback loop, where we stored all our hand-off and live ops checklists.
Hands-on Design
I worked directly on the product design and visuals for key monetization screens, new variations of the Home screen, the Live PVP match selection and gameplay, Live Show, cosmetic items such as Vinyls (app skins), the Reward Collection flow, and the complete overhaul of the subscription model. Nearly all of my A/B test ideas successfully moved KPIs the way we expected.
