Project Overview
Effy is a voice-first social platform. Instead of endless feeds of text and images, users share short voice notes — thoughts, stories, and knowledge — and the interface had to make listening feel as effortless as scrolling.
User Research
We ran two rounds of interviews and a diary study with early adopters to understand when and how people actually listen.
Key Findings
Listening happens in parallel with other activities — commuting, cooking, walking. The interface had to work glanceably, with large touch targets and controls reachable with one thumb.
Hypotheses
We hypothesized that a visible waveform would increase play rates by making voice notes feel tangible. A/B testing confirmed it: cards with waveforms were played 38% more often.
Product Design
We designed a mobile-first experience around large, tactile cards and a bold accent palette. The waveform became the hero element of the visual language, appearing across the app, marketing site and app store presence.
Key Screens
The listening feed, the recorder, and the profile were designed as one continuous system: the same card component adapts across all three contexts, keeping the experience familiar everywhere.
Design System
Alongside the product we delivered a full design system: tokens, components and motion guidelines that let the in-house team ship new features without design bottlenecks.
Reflections
Voice is an unforgiving medium — you cannot skim it. Designing for it taught us to respect the listener's time above everything else.
