Spotify Case Study

Spotify

Project overview: A 5-day design sprint exercise that explores ways in which Spotify could help foster communities of music lovers.

Role

Product designer

Tools

Figma

Duration

5 Days
7/17/21 - 7/21/21

The Problem

In 2017, Spotify got rid of their messaging feature citing low usage and high maintenance as the reasoning behind the decision. Along with the rise of curated playlists, this led to the increased personalization of the user experience.

The problem with the increased personalization of the Spotify’s UX is that it creates a sort of echo-chamber, where a few giant playlists curated by Spotify, full of top artists (placed with the help of record labels), seem to get all the attention.

Spotify lacks the sense of community and sharing that are baked into the ethos of the internet and music culture, but this may just be a symptom of the music streaming era.

Long term goal & sprint questions

Long term goal: build a community/ network of music lovers who share and explore new music all on Spotify.

Sprint questions:

How can Spotify allow users to make connections with each other?
How else can Spotify help users find and share content (Music, Podcasts etc…)?

I used these sprint questions to brainstorm potential features that could help users connect with each other and find/share content.

Features:

Explore page
Enable users to view who liked their playlists
Messaging

Design inspiration

For inspiration for messaging, explore pages and like listings, I looked to Instagram, Twitter, Soundcloud and IMessage. These designs had a significant influence on the final designs.

Flows and Mockups

Prototyping

Explore Feature:

Currently, to help users discover new content, Spotify utilizes radio stations, curated playlists and new release promotions along with other recommendations.

Those are great features but they are very bureaucratic and heavily influenced by the entertainment industry, neglecting to help emerging independent artists or utilize Spotify’s greatest assets, it’s users.

Why?

An explore page allows for users and artists to repost and share their favorite playlist, podcasts, songs and new releases.

This gives incentive to follow friends, curators and artists as well as opens an organic pathway to content discovery .

Share via Direct Messages:

In 2017 Spotify got rid of their messaging feature citing low usage and high maintenance as the reasoning behind the decision.

Although those reasons are valid, this had led to a poor music sharing experience.

Example: I was added to an IMessage group chat for music lovers across the country.

Links being sent by random numbers for every music streaming platform under the sun. Most of the time the links arrive broken, you can imagine how annoying that can be.

Solution: Platform specific communities, starting with group chats on direct messages.

View your likes:

Right now, Spotify users, both free and premium, only have the ability to view who is following their profile.

Adding the ability to view who likes your public playlists can go a long way in building brands, connections and communities on Spotify.

Why?

coupled with the messaging feature, viewing likes enables users to make connections organically on Spotify, as opposed to having to make that connection on another platform.

Conclusion:

Being one of my favorite/most used apps, I wanted to recreate Spotify and add a few feature I would like to see. This was a fun way to test out my design thinking, mockup and prototyping skills in a sprint.

Aside from helping users build connections, I believe Spotify, being the world biggest streaming platform, has a responsibility to help creators monetize and build community, regardless whether they are independent or signed. Especially since they finally became profitable in Q1 of 2021, reaching 158 million monthly subscribers.