Spotify Redesign — UX Case Study
Project Description
Music; “the window to the soul” a forever companion. We find music a part of our everyday. Be it work or working out, we always find ourselves humming to the tune.
Spotify has been a trendsetter key member in the music streaming industry, thanks to its endless music library and powerful algorithms. Despite making the app more user-centric in the last 12 years, the experience has gotten a bit tad overwhelming for some.
This is my attempt at redesigning Spotify UX as per the problems discovered during my research phase. This project is solely a passion project and does not involve any real client or business.
Background
Being a music enthusiast, I love sharing music with my friends. One day I texted my friend, asking her about a playlist I sent her a couple of days back. She reverted back, saying “To be honest, all your recommendations and suggestions just get buried down in our chat, and I’m just too lazy to scroll up”. Upon reading her text, I realised this is not the first time I’m hearing this. Thus I decided to solve this pain point and redesign Spotify's music streaming and sharing experience.
Case Summary
Product Vision
A music streaming app (Spotify) with a more user-centric layout approach to fit the compatibility needs and encourage effortless music discovery and sharing experience.
Discovered User Problems
With the primary and secondary research I’ve done, I came across three user problems which I have tried to tackle in this project.
1. Music shared via messaging apps tends to get overlooked and ignored and hence leads to disappointment and discouragement.
2. Lack of segregation between podcasts and music.
Outcomes
The outcome of the redesign was that users felt more comfortable with music streaming and music sharing.
Product Highlight
Process Followed
Role Played
UX Researcher, UX Designer
Tech Used
Figma, Adobe XD, Typeforms
Project Plan
A week of discovery and problem definition, followed by a week of ideation, rapid prototyping, and testing.
Research Plan
The whole research plan was based around the user experience with the information architecture, and to define the target market for music sharing and music discovery.
Primary Research
I started my primary research by making a survey on Typeform which was filled by 56 individuals followed by 5 personal interviews. The main aim of my survey was to study user behavior: how they discover new music, how often do they share music, how they feel about the app layout.
Secondary Research
My secondary research mostly revolved around Spotify’s business model, it’s competitors, and new avenues Spotify is looking into to expand its reach. This research aimed to get my ideation process aligned with Spotify’s key business values.
Research Insights
My primary takeaways from the research process were: -
1. Spotify has a young user base
2. People want easy access to features
3. Users think Spotify is not parent-friendly
4. Users consume music mostly when they are working on something else
5. Users are willing to share music with their friends and close circle
Research Outcome
Poor Homepage Layout
The research outcome that I would like to mention first is the content-packed homepage. Due to the content flooding, the users are left high and dry.
“The homepage is never ending”
“For someone as indecisive as me, Spotify’s homepage is a big no”
Inconvenient Information Architecture
Upon this discovery, I realized where Spotify was lacking the most — their homepage had everything which revolves around the user but does not provide easy access to the user’s library.
“Homepage has everything but my music”
“I want my music first, not Spotify’s 10000+ curated playlists”
“I want my music and my podcasts separate”
Poor Music Sharing Experience
Due to the involvement of messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, the users feel their suggestions get buried down.
“Music sharing experience can be smooth”
“The music I share doesn’t get acknowledged”
Define
Empathy Mapping
After researching and analyzing the existing market and users, I started to get a better understanding of the problems users might face every day. To empathize better with the users, I decided to create an empathy map followed by personas.
Persona
To cover a vast user base, I decided to create three personas of different age groups with different needs.
How Might We…
As I was finishing with the empathy map and persona creation, I started to realize the depth of the problems discovered. At this stage, I found myself in a perfect position to start with the HMW exercise.
Finally, I was able to narrow down my 30+ HMW statements to 5, which were perfectly covering every aspect of the problems faced by the users.
1. How Might We design a music sharing functionality which fits seamlessly with the current Spotify interface?
2. How Might We design a user experience which is user-centric, comfortable, and not overwhelming?
3. How Might We make the music discovery experience more comfortable?
4. How Might We redesign the homepage to keep the user’s essence and still remove the overwhelming content?
5. How Might We minimalize the app layout and yet don’t lose out on important functionalities
Design
Proposed Solutions
After my discovery and define phase, I started ideating the solution to the problems that I discovered earlier. Following are some solutions I came up with.
Approach 1
- Have a global search on the homepage.
- Add “Browse” and “Podcasts” to the navigation bar to distribute the content, and make the whole experience a bit less overwhelming.
- Add in-app messaging functionality. To have music sharing as the main focus, I decided not to have a text feature for this functionality.
Approach 2
- Have a dedicated search button on the navbar
- Add saved podcasts to the library, as a different section
- Discover new music and podcasts in Browse, a new navbar section
- Have a feed where people can get notified about the music shared with them.
Design Decision
Keeping the business needs and the user needs in mind, and after conducting a small user testing over a mid-fidelity wireframe, I finally decided to go with Approach 1, because: -
- Having a global search bar requires a total of 1 tap to search, whereas having a search experience like the current one requires a total of 2 taps.
- Since Spotify has decided to grow their business towards podcasts (please refer to my secondary research), I finally decided upon having a separate section for podcasts, so that the content breathes and grows separately.
- For the music sharing experience, I decided upon designing an in-app messaging feature rather than having a feed because - a) a feed would face the same problem as our texts — the music shared will get lost. b) the majority of our users are young, and most of them are mentally mapped to Instagram‘s DM feature.
Information Architecture
Wireframes
High Fidelity Designs
Digging deeper into our solution
Here’s a step-by-step micro-level view:
An attempt to clean the IA
In my attempt to clean up the information architecture of the Spotify App, I decided upon getting the library to the home, where our users can switch between tabs to access their music. I also ended up adding the “Browse” and the “Podcast” section to the bottom navigational bar.
In-App Music Sharing
The process begins with a tap on the message icon, placed on the right-hand side of the screen, which results in an overlay to pop up. This overlay shows the list of contacts, with whom our users regularly share their music.
On our navigation bar, I have designed an inbox, where our users can see all the songs shared by their friends. Upon opening a message, one can play the received song, or add it to the queue or add it to a playlist. On double-tap, our user can like the recommendation.
Prototype
User Testing
I have tested out this prototype on 9 users (three of each persona) in order to validate my hypothesis.
I observed a positive response from my test users. Most users loved easy access to the library, a separate section for podcasts, and an easy music sharing experience. However, some of them raised concerns regarding their privacy on Spotify and Promotional Spamming on the platform.
Somethings that went as planned
Test Users were satisfied with the final outcome of the product. They really liked the user flow and data segregation. The overall experience, according to them has been refined.
Somethings that didn’t go as planned
Some concerns were raised on user privacy and promotional spamming on the platform.
Success and Failure Metrics
We will know if our solution is a success through these metrics:
- Opening Spotify seems less overwhelming
- A higher number of people are encouraged to listen to podcasts
- Higher music sharing satisfaction
- More people use the new music sharing feature
And we will know if the feature is a failure through these metrics:
- The new layout has a considerable learning/understanding curve
- Lower user satisfaction
- Podcasts get looked over
- Disproval of the new music sharing experience
Outcomes
Based on the findings from both UX research and user validation sessions I was able to come up with a list of changes that would be addressed in the next iteration: -
1. Minimal profile information will be shared
2. Removal of texting feature to keep the focus more on music and related experiences
3. Music sharing will be enabled only when both the parties follow each other (mutual consent)
Knowledge Gaps
If I had more time, I would’ve loved to do some in-person usability testing with some of my friends to get some more insights on the way they use Spotify. I would’ve also loved to dive deeper with the second round of interviews focusing on the other music streaming platforms that they mentioned, like Youtube, to see which features they find most valuable and exactly how they use them. I believe that there are features that Spotify could potentially adopt from the other music streaming platforms that would give users additional value.
Next Steps
- Test the hi-fi prototype and make another iteration
- Address the problems raised in user testing
Leaning towards learning
Every project comes with its objectives and, we all take away some new learnings out of them. I had a great time solving these problems using design, and I can’t wait to learn more!
Try not to bring personal preference into your solution
I am not the user even if I use the app! Although I am a loyal Spotify user, I had to keep reminding myself not to accept my assumptions as facts. It’s a universal UX principle to always keep the users at the center of the design.
Importance of Research and Testing
With this project, I decided to have proper user surveys, user interviews, brand research, and user testing. All this really helped me empathize better with the user along with having all the design goals in mind.
Recap
Improving the user experience for an already existing app and still keeping it’s key business values intact turned out to be challenging at points. I needed to embody the existing experience but improve at the same time. Based on my research surveys and interviews, I came across the user’s thought processes while using the app, what they liked about the app, and what their pain points were. It was challenging to keep a track of everything first but empathy mapping and how might we exercise really helped me to get my thoughts aligned.
Matching the existing aesthetic while having freedom with the visual layout was also challenging because I was free to run with ideas, but not deviate too much from the original aesthetic. I’m happy with the end result which still has hints of the original Spotify App, but with new twists.
