Spotify
CASE STUDY
OVERVIEW
An in-app music sharing and discovery experience aimed at curating new music selections that best fit your taste from the people who know you best.
What's the song that goes…
BABABABA,
BA BABABABA
BABA BABA BABABADO
Problem
Spotify is an integral part of our daily lives (unless you're an Apple Music user of course). It gives us the soundtrack to our morning commute, gets us through work days and workouts, and adds life to the otherwise mundane things we do during the day. With the number of songs we circulate through, we're bound to discover new favorites or songs that remind us of our friends along the way.
People want to share the songs they're currently raving about with their friends so everyone can listen to and discover new music together. However, this is difficult because:
People resort to external sources to send music to each other.
People resort to external sources to identify a song that's currently playing.
If someone asks what song is playing while they're out, they usually forget about it later since it's too inconvenient to search and add in the moment.
How do people use Spotify?
I asked 6 Spotify users to walk me through what they typically do when they open up the app and how they would discover and share music. Through these talks, I found that:
People mainly listen to their own music library.
Users share songs mostly through text messages — either by naming the song and artist or sending a link from Spotify.
Users use Shazam or Snapchat’s Shazam feature to discover songs they like that are currently playing.
Users will either add a new song they like immediately after hearing it OR forget about it and search for it later if they remember.
These conversations taught me that the real issue wasn’t discovering and sharing music, but rather getting to the point where users actually added a newly discovered song to their own library or actually listened to a song their friend sent them.
Ideation
With the help of my friends Casey Le and Kenneth Dao, we developed a list of 'how might we' questions, categorized them into opportunity areas, and brainstormed numerous solutions for each area. Through all of these explorations, we identified two main areas of improvement.
Brainstorm Dump
CREATING A SENSE
OF COMMUNITY
How might we make it easier to share and access music from others within our music listening platform?
INTEGRATING MUSIC DISCOVERY WITH
THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE
How might we make it easier to discover and make newly discovered songs a part of our own library?
Lo-Fi Concepts
With these ideas in mind, I sketched out some potential solutions, such as group chats, in-app sharing, in-app Shazam, and listening parties.
Sketches
I decided to move forward with In-App Sharing and In-App Shazam because they dealt most directly with the ideas of community and discovery without taking away from Spotify’s primary purpose, which is to listen to music.
Explorations
Sending songs in-app
By giving users a way to share songs directly in Spotify, they no longer need to count on their friend stopping what they're doing to click on a text link to listen to that song. Instead, the shared song is already in the platform users listen to music in, giving them more of an incentive to check it out since they'd now see it when they choose to be in the music space and it won't get lost in the text world if they decide to wait until later to check it out.
Out of these three explorations, I decided to go with the second one because:
The composition of the sharing screen (with in-app sharing occupying most of the space) was most suggestive of it being the primary sharing method, encouraging users to share songs through Spotify before turning to external sources.
The feedback was most effective as it clearly confirmed details about the action that had been completed without being too invasive.
After talking to some users, I found that the messaging part of the in-app sharing feature was unnecessary since it related more to social media rather than the music listening experience. If users wanted to send messages to their friend, they would simply go to apps designed primarily for messaging (e.g. iMessage, Messenger), so I decided to move forward without this element.
Receiving a song in-app
I tested out different notification methods, a reaction feature, and a feed which compiles shared songs to see how I could encourage users to listen to songs they receive.
Based on user feedback, I found that users didn’t feel the need for reactions for the same reason as messaging, so I focused on the notification and feed aspects instead.
The full screen notification from the first iteration would appear when users initially open Spotify, while the drop down notification from the second iteration would appear if a user was already in the app. Since having a full screen pop up appear every time someone shared a song would inevitably become annoying and take away from the listening experience, I decided it would be best to have it appear less frequently.
The feed then becomes a space where users can find songs friends have sent them or that they have discovered through the in-app Shazam. Its organization into three sections (Recently shared with you, Friend playlists, and From Shazam) makes it simple to navigate to what a user is looking for.
In-App Shazam
By integrating Shazam with Spotify, users no longer have to switch between apps and manually search for a song they’ve heard. This is because song identification and calls to action (Like, Add to Playlist, Share) are all in one place, making it easier for users to add newly identified songs to their own library.
For these two flows, I explored different entry points and designs for the identification process. I pursued the first flow because the entry point was more intuitive, as it was next to other methods of searching for a song, and the screen during the identifying process provided clearer directions, options, and feedback to users.
Final Designs
In-App Sharing
No text messages or links required - just send the song to friends directly in Spotify.
Receiving Music In-App
Notifications for songs friends have shared appear when users open the app and while they are already in the app. All shared songs and Shazam’d songs are compiled into the Friend + Discovery Feed.
Shazam Integration
Allows users to discover the name of a song they’ve just heard and easily add it to their own library all in one place.
Reflection
As my first case study, this project has taught me so much about the product process. I learned that before all the fun visual design comes an extensive process of research, questioning, and ideation, which is essential as the foundation to the rest of the process. Design isn't isolated, but rather a vehicle to transform our ideas into something tangible that can help improve someone's experience.
Thank you Cornell AppDev for this experience!
This was a case study for CORNELL APPDEV'S Digital Product Design COURSE. I am in no way affiliated with Spotify.