Design Brief

Spotify social feature

Design a new social feature that embeds within the current Spotify platform for mobile devices— this new feature should focus on human as well as emotional connection, primarily centred around music.

Client Spotify
Background

Being the most prominent music streaming platform with 286 million monthly active users, Spotify wants to expand its core capabilities by adding new features to improve engagement and retention in the app.   Ever since the removal of the messaging capabilities earlier in 2017 due to low engagement, they see the opportunity where the connection between human and music evokes emotions and the need to engage socially. Their goal is to improve and add values towards user's experience in the app—whether it is person-to-person, many-to-one that artists have or collective groups, they want to create more space for such interaction and social activities.

Research

GOALS

  • Discover the reasons why users choose Spotify over other music apps on the market.
  • Identify users’ pain points and success using Spotify.
  • Learn more about user’s preference, usage and habits on relevant social media channels.
  • Identify other music streaming service providers as competitors

METHODS

  • Market Research
    • Identify different features in Spotify as well as other music apps and its functionalities.
    • Understand the landscape of music streaming on a global scale.
    • Referencing market trends in music streaming services.
  • Generative Research
    • Primary research: conduct online surveys and interviews to understand user’s habits, needs and desires.
    • Secondary research: online user reviews, testimonials and articles.
  • Ethnographic Research
    Using my own experience as an advanced Spotify users as well as people in my social network.
Competitors Analysis

Direct competitors offers similar music and/or video streaming service as Spotify.

Indirect Competitors

Generally speaking, all direct competitors lack the options of in-app interaction. Users need to move onto other social media apps to share music instead—this extra step adds a disruption to the user experience. Though they boast their curated playlist for different moods or occasions, users cannot share or extend their emotions without leaving the application itself.
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In contrast, both indirect competitors offer a platform that encourages user interaction centred around music by sharing and commenting. It adds a social aspect to these platforms for those who are passionate about music.

Online Surveys
Interviews
• Total participants: 4
• Age range: 29-46

Participant 1
‍35 years old
Male
Creative Strategist

‍Participant 2
29 years old
Female
Product Manager

Participant 3
46 years old
Male
Retoucher

Participant 4
36 years old
Male
Procurement

Key Findings

Most of the interviewees do not care for an in-app social interaction as they already have other social media channels to do so. Playlists are the most popular and frequently used feature amongst the participants. It’s mostly because their playlists are related to their moods, memories or special occasions.

Human interactions are an integral part of our daily lives and human emotions are often driven by these type of social interactions. Often, people use music to commemorate meaningful events or sentimental moments. Music-related social events such as live music or concerts, festivals, and etc are popular because it offers the opportunity to create a connection between music and human emotions. Moreover, the existence of playlists, whether it’s from other's recommendation or their own playlists, allows users to express their emotions or create new memories. They are very interested in having more interactions with this particular functionality e.g. playlist with ratings, giftable playlists or video slides that is synced to playlist (for parties or special occasion).
Personas
3 provisional personas were identified as potential based on market research, online surveys and user interviews.

The Millennials
23 - 38 years old

The Gen Z
Up to 22 years old

The Gen X
39 - 54 years old

A main persona was formulated based on key findings from all research phases and analysis.

The Thriller-seeker
25 - 45 years old
Avid travellers

The Collector
30 - 45 years old
Sophisticated

The Innovator
40 - 50 years old
High income earners & tech savvy

Ideation

Discovery
‍Our target users, “The Millennials”, are active Spotify users who listens to music on a daily basis and this routine is a big part of their social life. Music generates different emotions and memories for them — whether they are at a personal or social settings, they connect music to their need to interact by sharing their music—and even better, to experience it together with their friends . They are keen to visit places that match their music taste or spontaneous preferences. Whether they want to have a night out dancing with friends or enjoy a low-key night out with live music, there is no easy way to find a venue that matches their music preferences on a whim.
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Just like the way we want to find a suitable restaurant to enjoy a pleasant meal or a bar with a nice ambience to enjoy a beverage with friends, why can’t we have a similar social experience when it comes to music? If we can create our own playlist on Spotify to build up an ambience for a home party, why can’t a social venue utilise this function to let these users know what kind of atmosphere they are hosting? At the end of the day,  our target users want the same type of pleasant experience (memorable, even) as restaurants and bars.
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Concept
‍By connecting venues with Spotify Premium users, end users can easily find a suitable place to socialise with their friends based on their music preferences through an interactive map search. Meanwhile, it encourages venues who are driven by the type of music they play to interact with end users on a more personable level.
Site Map
User Flow
Wireframes
Responsive UI
& Prototype

Bike selection questionnaire assists users to determine which bicycle will suit their need and help them to determine which bicycle is the most suitable.

UI Kit
Usability Testing
  • Total participants: 3
  • Age range: 30-46
  • Method: In-person testing

GOALS

To search for a venue or event to go to based on their music preference.

TASK

  • To navigate and search for a venue that suits their music taste with no major friction.
  • To find out the different type of music being played or performed at different venue at any time.
Summary

Participants were excited and intrigued by the interactive map search function. It was intuitive for them to conduct an interactive search on map which leads to further exploration of different ways to search for a venue.

Completion Rate: 95%

GENERAL COMMENTS:

  • It is great to have a venue bio to read more about the place.
  • “I like the idea of finding a place that plays the music I like before I go!”
  • The filter based on music genre and ambience is very helpful.
  • Image gallery of the venue is good to have as I would like to see it before I go.
Next Step

In order to revert user’s experience back to Spotify, a post-event playlist generated by the venue can turn user’s social experience to a memento.

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