sami iyengar

Skills used:

UX research

Heuristic evaluation

Persona development

A/B testing

Usability testing

Figma prototyping

User flow design

Maze analytics

Iterative interface design

 Content hierarchy

Interaction design

To address key usability issues across two popular platforms, Spotify and Duolingo, my team and I designed targeted interface enhancements that balance user control, engagement, and clarity. For Spotify, we focused on giving users more agency over their home screen recommendations, which were previously overwhelming or irrelevant for listeners with niche preferences. Our redesign introduces a toggle feature that lets users choose how many recommendations they want to see: none, a reduced amount, or a fully personalized feed based on their habits. Users found the new interface intuitive and empowering, with feedback confirming that the increased flexibility made for a more satisfying listening experience.

In the Duolingo redesign, we tackled how grammar hints are integrated into the learning experience. We hypothesized that grammar support would improve comprehension, but the hints should not give away the answer; to test this, we developed multiple Figma-based prototypes and ran comparative A/B tests using Maze.  Through iterative experimentation, we learned how small changes in copy and placement, like swapping an unlabeled ⓘ icon for a readable button, can drastically improve usability without disrupting the app’s familiar format.​