VOICE MEMOS
Marking key moments and expanding on ideas with two new features for iOS Voice Memos.
Year: 2024
Duration: 75 hours
Role: Sole UX/UI Designer
THE CONTEXT
A versatile tool for students, professionals, and creatives.
Voice Memos (not to be confused with audio text messaging) is a built-in iOS application developed for recording audio using your device’s microphone. Users can quickly capture and store voice notes, interviews, lectures, or other sounds with basic organization and sharing capabilities. It currently has 4.8 out of 5 stars from over 689,000 user ratings on the app store.
THE HYPOTHESIS
Opportunity for evolving the recording experience.
The app’s current functionality focuses on basic recording and editing tasks, leaving ample room for improvement and innovation. Lacking advanced features can create frustrations and discourage users from continuing their work or play.
The Objective
DISCOVER HOW professionals use THE TOOL AND if IT CAN BE improved
THE RESEARCH
Understanding the market and the users.
Competitor Analysis
Analyzing three competitors on the market allowed us to identify the platforms strengths and weaknesses. Each of the competitors had integrated at least one of the following additional features, whereas Voice Memos had none.
Markers
Multitracking or Overdub recording
Transcription
Notes
user interviews
We interviewed five participants in order to understand their goals for visiting the platform, uncover any pain points in the usage, and learn if additional features would benefit their overall experience. Questions included:
Can you walk me through your typical usage case of the app?
What features do you use most frequently?
Have you ever encountered any difficulties?
If you could change one thing about the app, what would it be?
“I’D LIKE TO BE ABLE TO ADD TO AN EXISTING RECORDING.”
“RECORDINGS CAn be up to an hour HOUR long, SO MARKing certain sections WOULD BE USEFUL.”
THE SYNTHESIS
Identifying pain points, needs, and new ideas.
The research pool comprised of journalists, documentarians, and musicians. All participants use the app to either record live moments or initial ideas, and they find the basic functioning intuitive.
The biggest surprise was how little time users spent on the app. To them, it’s simply a tool to record sound as quickly as possible. Distinguishing the app as a ‘capturing and ideating’ tool versus an ‘editing’ tool was necessary in evolving the new features; what would enhance users’ experience without overcomplicating it?
Luckily, the users made their need of three new features very clear.
AFFINITY MAPPING
Categorizing similarities from the research confirmed that users are not interested in intricate features. Their main motivation is to capture, ideate, and organize audio swiftly. We identified a few simple solutions in the key findings below.
PERSONAS
The two personas that emerged from the research findings are The Explorer and The Creator. The Explorer seeks reliability whereas The Creator needs efficiency, but both value structure and a straightforward interface.
KEY finding 1
All users would find it useful to mark specific areas of their recordings. Some would mark in real-time to note important points, others would use the feature upon listening back.
Key finding 2
60% of users suggested an overdubbing feature. For musicians especially, this would allow them to layer additional sounds on top of a base track.
key finding 3
60% of users suggested integrating transcription. People are frustrated at having to export the file into external software to do the job.
key finding 4
Users need efficiency and simplicity. They don’t want to spend long tinkering in the app as it is primarily used to capture live moments or initial ideas.
KEY FINDING 5
Users struggle with the lack of organization. The uncategorized main feed creates friction when trying to locate files.
How might we
incorporate one-touch features to elevate user experience
How might we offer users a way to build upon an initial idea, encouraging ideation within a single recording session?
How might we provide an intuitive timestamp, helping users make informed decisions about which audio to prioritize?
How might we integrate audio transcription, allowing users to streamline their workflow?
but wait!
Midway through our design planning, Apple announced the roll-out of transcription and overdub recording as part of iOS 18 and the iPhone 16.
THE PLANNING
A fork in the road…and a new addition.
Apple’s coincidental timing brought us back to the drawing board. We had previously committed to building the following three features: audio markers, overdub recording, and real-time AI transcription. While we could have proceeded with our own version of a transcription feature, we didn’t feel like an original approach was necessary as the technology was already widely established.
It was still valuable to develop the overdub feature as there were more user needs and design possibilities. In order to maintain integrity to the process, we avoided referencing Apple’s design (in fact, we couldn’t even access it if we tried on our old phone model).
This left room to prioritize an organizational feature: folder tags. We found that most users weren’t aware of the existing folder feature and will go so far as to abandon previous voice memos due to challenging search function. The hope is these color-coded tags would make scanning saved voice memos easier.
FEATURE ROADMAP
Overdub recording - the ability to record a new memo while referencing a previous take
Overdub volume adjustment - the ability to adjust the volume or mute individual tracks
Audio marker - the ability to add a visual marker to a specific point in a memo
Folder Tags - the ability to add a memo to a specific folder upon recording completion
User FLOWS
Overdub a recording on an existing memo
Add an audio marker to an existing memo
Add a folder tag to a memo upon recording completion
THE DESIGN
Iterating through wireframes and mockups.
Conducting usability tests on the lo-fi screens provided valuable insight as we iterated on the design solution. For example, knowing 80% of users hold their phones with their right hand for one-handed actions informed the placement of new features.
FEATURE 1: audio marker
Results showed a preference for the downwards-pointing marker icon. Users also prefer the icons to appear in a single row as opposed to split into two. We shifted the marker to the right-hand side for easy thumb access.
FEATURE 2: OVERDUB RECORDING
Participants noted that controlling the overdub volume is crucial, but numbering the tracks is not. To increase clarity, we replaced the numerals with a speaker icon so users would know how to engage.
FEATURE 3: folder tags
Results showed that participants like the folder tag on the right-hand side of memo titles. We continued to explore color options for this feature.
TESTING & ITERATING
“Would love to see these features live in my voice memo app.”
Once the hi-fi prototype was complete, we conducted an unmoderated test with 20 participants via Useberry. We gathered feedback on the usability, visual appeal, and engagement of the following task flows:
Add a marker to an existing recording and to a new recording
Record an overdub over an existing recording
Mute & unmute overdub tracks
Identify the voice memo with overdubs on the homepage
refining the overdub process
45% of participants found adding multiple overdub recordings confusing. They were unsure if pressing the record button would trigger a new track or replace the original. We added descriptive text beside the record button to indicate an active overdub state, and further clarified the action by changing the cursor and waveform to red while recording.
USing PROXIMITY to clearly identify memos with overdubs
Only 35% of users could confidently locate which voice memo had overdubs from the homepage. Recalling the rule of proximity, we moved the plus icon closer to the memo title.
The Solution
BRingING EVERYTHING TOGETHER
THE REFLECTION
Pivot when necessary.
With more time we would include tool tips to introduce users to the new features. The marker and overdub icons are standard in recording software but they may not be obvious to inexperienced users.
The main challenge of this project was pivoting from the transcription to the folder tags feature. We ultimately enjoyed re-synthesizing the research to prioritize a new feature. The other challenge was keeping the features as close to one-touch actions as possible. We aimed to preserve the app’s ‘quick capturing and ideating’ identity and not complicate the flows.
Key takeaways:
Don’t be afraid to pivot. When the market shifts, you can too.
Check your bias. Make sure design decisions are derived from the research and testing insights, not your own experience.
Seek as many participants as possible. Having three times the amount of feedback from hi-fi usability tests was helpful for prioritizing iterations.