Spotify Social Feature
Adding a social element to a streaming giant / UX Designer/ Music Streaming
Context
This project was a conceptual challenge to find a feature to add into Spotify’s preexisting architecture. After some initial conversations with friends who are users of Spotify, I decided to go the exploratory route. I couldn’t just decide on a feature without taking a temperature with users first! Through user interviews and a survey, I explored how users felt about music from a social standpoint, and let their answers guide me from there.
The feature I landed on was a space called the Community Lounge where users could opt in to post playlists that their followers could see, and vice versa. I also added a “like” feature that differentiates from the current Spotify heart, so you can show appreciation for a playlist without adding it to your library. The feature is an attempt to strike a balance between being able to share music without perceived negative judgment, while also encouraging listeners to explore new music without the aid of an algorithm.
Problem:
Users feel like it is not easy to come across new music, nor do they feel comfortable sharing music they listen to with anyone they are not super familiar with who has the same taste as them.
Goal:
Create a low-pressure space where users are encouraged to share playlists and engage with one another organically
Exploration
User Interviews
For these exploratory interviews, I was able to connected with 4 participants via Zoom. Among the 4 participants, all of them primarily used Spotify for consuming music and podcasts. The study did not require that the users engage with Spotify in particular, so this result speaks to the reach of Spotify.
Two of the participants specifically noted that they may use Spotify to share music but are more inclined to use YouTube, especially if they are unsure if the recipient has Spotify. This finding showed that users, when compelled to share, are willing to go through the journey of opening another application in order to provide an easy experience for their friends. Additionally, participants repeatedly noted that they were unsure of if their friends were on Spotify or not, and no one mentioned use of the friends section within Spotify. This was noted and followed up on via a short survey.
Several participants also mentioned using Instagram Stories to share and find music. They enjoyed the integrations and found satisfaction in giving out music based on their moods. It also spoke to their openness to receiving music from people and institutions with which they already have an established Instagram connection.
Two users noted that they felt like Spotify’s recommendations for new artists missed the mark. One complained that the algorithm didn’t bring them particularly interesting or new music, but rather repeated what they already listened to or offered little variety. The other noted that they felt the recommendations were probably influenced by financial incentives for Spotify, and didn’t feel authentic to the user they were targeted to.
Users spoke about being selective regarding who they shared music to, seeming to not want to waste anyone’s time or bother anyone with something they weren’t interested in. This makes sense because music is taste-oriented, can change your mood, and is a time investment. One user in particular noted that if you are going to create a shared playlist, you would want to know that the other people who are invited have similar taste. That participant also noted that playlists with too many contributors can get too long, and that anyone on the list can delete whatever they feel like, creating a dictatorial dynamic.
Over all, these conversations showed that music is a highly personal topic. Users were interested in their own taste, and were interested in the taste of others once a bond has already been established. There was a push-and-pull dynamic between autonomy and connectedness: users wanted to listen to what speaks to them, while still being able to find people who enjoy the same thing and learn about more bands and songs from those people.
Survey
Overview
This survey reached 16 people between the ages of 18 and 44. This small sample gives some added insight into user behavior within the Spotify app, and in relation to music sharing habits more broadly. This data is meant to further contextualize the findings gathered from our previous user interviews. The survey analysis is below, with data points in the pages to follow.
Listening habits
The majority of responders to this survey listen to Spotify every day, with no one listening less than once per week. This indicates that Spotify is a well-utilized tool that users come back to habitually.
Do users share music?
When asked if they share music with friends, 43% said sometimes, while 37.5% said yes. One respondent said “rarely” while two were an adamant “no.” The no responders said they felt music is too personal to share, or they only use the app for listening. The Yes responders tended to share via a link to Spotify–over 70%. This opposes my finding from the interviews in which most people tended to go to YouTube in order to share music that they listened to within Spotify.
Spotify friends
About 37% of responders either had zero friends or didn’t know how many they had. Only 2 had about 22 friends. However, people overwhelmingly stated that they either didn’t utilize the friend function beyond just having friends, or they simply silently stalked what their friends listened to from the desktop version of the app. This paints the picture that Spotify has a feature (friends) with untapped potential.
Finding new music
The majority of survey respondents felt that sharing music was important to them, but a few leaned in the other direction. However, all respondents except one thought it was important to find new music and artists that resonate with them. This indicates that while not everyone needs to spread their “gospel” of good music, they definitely want to be able to tap into new sources and be shared with.
Definition
Ideation
With the exploration phase in mind, I started to ideate on what this feature could encompass. Users seemed to want a more organic way to discover new music in Spotify, but they were hesitant about sharing one-on-one with people who weren’t super close friends with the same taste in music. Additionally, many people had no idea that Spotify allows users to follow and be followed.
After some brain storming, I landed on a space in which users could publish one playlist per day to be discoverable by those who follow them. Posting once per day was to emulate BeReal, where there is lower traffic and less anxiety about what gets posted. This area would also have suggestions to follow certain influencers or musical artists’ personal profiles. These playlists were to be featured for the day but you can explore another users’ post history, and favorite playlists to keep them in Your Library as well.
Personas
Role Model Assessment
Because Spotify is an established giant in the music streaming space, I found that rather than a competitive analysis, it was more fruitful to do a role model assessment so that I could think about how to pull from existing standards to create a familiar user experience in this new feature. For this assessment, I studied Instagram, BeReal, and YouTube Music.
Product Roadmap
I created a product roadmap to guide the way for the MVP and to prioritize tasks during the design phase. Since I am the sole designer on a limited time frame, the MVP needed to slimmed down as much as possible while keeping in mind that near-future sprints would include the Fast Follows.
Conclusions
Adding a feature to Spotify was a a great exercise in exploring the thoughts, opinions, wants, and needs of users. While the exploration phase provided plenty of insight into users’ moments of discontent or hesitation around sharing, there were no glaringly obvious pieces missing from an app as simple, useful, and successful as Spotify.
Most interesting was the strong reaction that the initial test of the feature received regarding the limitation to only posting once per day. What started out in my mind as a fun addition to the feature as a whole, ended up irking most users who took the test. There was also a fair amount of confusion about the scope of the new feature. This led me to get rid of the once per day limitation, and to add a short “tutorial” of sorts in a pop-up modal for when users first step foot into the Community Lounge.
Given the amount of opportunities uncovered in the first user test, I would recommend performing another few rounds of testing before moving forward with such a significant change to Spotify.
Design
In the design phase, I tried to stay true to Spotify’s design standards while also pushing myself to experiment more with autolayout and gain muscle memory within Figma. Although Spotify does not tend to have extreme differences among page layouts throughout the app, I still went through wireframes and low fidelity stages in order to get a better sense of the elements and layout for myself.
Wireframes
A sampling of wireframes
Low Fidelity
High Fidelity
User Testing
For this user test, I recruited 6 users to do a moderated test via Zoom. The users were asked to explore the new feature by creating a playlist and were asked questions along the way.
Reading the Affinity Map
Users easily completed the task of navigating to the Community Lounge and publishing a playlist
Most users directly noticed the banner advertising the new feature on the home page. Only one user noticed the new icon on the left hand nav bar, indicating that this needs to be highlighted at least for the first introduction.
There were many different ideas about what the Community Lounge is/what you are able to do there. This indicates that users needed more information upon interacting with the new feature.
Largely, users were against being limited to publishing one Community Lounge playlist per day. If it was not a point of friction, it was described as negligible because users didn’t see themselves putting together more than one playlist per day.
Users were confused about how the tags worked
Users were confused about who can see their Community Lounge playlists and whose they will see
Users wanted to see more interactions available - see who follows a playlist, who has liked it, be able to rate it, etc.
Key Takeaways
Limiting posting to once per day was unnecessary friction
More explanation was needed for the first introduction of this feature
It needed to be explicit about who can see the playlists users make in the Community Lounge
The taxonomy of tags needed to be fleshed out
The friend/follower area should have been more obvious and interactive
Updated Feature Roadmap
The user testing and the following affinity map lead to this updated feature roadmap, which guided the priorities for iteration.
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