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Spotlight Spotify
A UX Case Study
As someone who uses Spotify for an unhealthy amount of time on a daily basis, I attempted to design an improved user experience for Spotify’s mobile app and add new features using the design thinking process.
This case study was featured by UX Collective - Bootcamp, the largest design publication on Medium.
14 September 2021
PART ONE
Empathising with Users
Satyam Saxena
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Listened to more than 30k minutes (~21 days) of music in 2020 on Spotify
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Listens to music while walking & studying.
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Says that music helps his mind to calm down, and concentrate.
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Listens to podcasts while commuting in Mumbai's impenetrable traffic.
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Believes he is highly receptive to all music tastes, and can’t narrow down on a favourite genre.
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Loves discovering new songs, a good one just might make his day for the next 30 minutes.
Needs and Goals:
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Would like to discover absolutely new music
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Would like to organise his music in a better manner
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Would love to share his music with friends more easily
PART TWO
Defining the Problems
The Spotify app has undergone significant improvements both visually and functionally. However, there always exists scope for improvement, and here are my two cents on the iOS app.
Home Tab
Recently played items occupy the top of the home tab
Scrolling down brings up the recently played items again.
Music and podcasts are mixed together making it confusing to navigate.
Now Playing Screen
Actions such as shuffle, repeat are repeated on the more options menu.
Essential actions are hidden beyond the first fold & require scrolling.
Visual style is incoherent with the other screens (solid gradient vs blurred background).
Other Pain Points
Downloading Music
If a user needs to download a song for offline listening, the only way is to add it to a dedicated playlist that you’ve marked for downloading.
This adds an unnecessary complication for users who want to download one particular song since they have to have a separate playlist for their downloaded music.
Sharing Music
Sharing music by copying links & pasting it in other apps introduces a lot of friction & leads to user drop-offs.
A framework where people can share music with people they are close to and listen together within the Spotify app is needed.
The friend activity section on the desktop app should be incorporated into the mobile app as well.
PART THREE
Ideating the Solutions
Before jumping into Figma and preparing high fidelity mockups, I felt the need to jot down a list of Jobs to be Done and sketch out my ideas on paper.
Jobs to be Done
1
The home tab needs to be revamped, to make it easier to navigate and visually consistent.
3
A way to download a single song into a default playlist should be provided.
2
Actions on the Now Playing screen need to be streamlined
4
A music sharing framework is needed within the app.
Low Fidelity Sketches
PART FOUR
Designing Prototypes
I prepared all my UI mockups using Figma, owing partly to my experience using this software and partly to the fact that it is free and has a rich collection of community assets that make life a tad bit easy. I also prepared an interactive prototype that could give people a better understanding of what I had designed.
I shared this prototype with 6 close friends (all avid Spotify users) and gathered their feedback to improve on my designs and refine the UX. Here are the final high-fidelity mockups.
Home Tab Revamp
I designated two separate sections for music, and podcasts to enable easy discovery and prevent mixing up of the two content formats.
These two sections can be toggled by using the two prominent buttons on the top. A green bar at the bottom coupled with a dynamic background colour blob denote the active state and give visual feedback to the user upon tapping.
I removed the notifications section at the top since it had notifications about new episodes and songs that are anyway displayed on the home page.
I also removed the settings button on the home tab since it isn’t used very frequently and can be accessed using the profile button on the “Your Library” tab. In its place, I added a button for the Friend Activity section (discussed in a later section).
Streamlined Actions on the Now Playing Screen
Once the options menu is opened, I eliminated all the redundant options that were already present on the ‘now playing’ screen leaving just 9 options that could be neatly arranged in a grid. This eliminates scrolling and brings the important options within easy reach.
I also redesigned the share page, with a more coherent visual style and a new sharing feature that I introduce later. Since the options sheet and the social sharing sheet come up from the bottom, these menus can be dismissed at any time by swiping down or using the back button in the top left corner.
A New Music Sharing Space — Friend Activity
Tapping on the Friend Activity button brings the user to the Friend Activity section.
The Friend Activity home page lists all the people we follow along with their last listened/currently listening song (provided they haven’t enabled private sessions in the settings).
Tapping on a chat tile brings us to the chat & sharing screen. The person’s photo, name and username are displayed prominently in the top header, along with the group listening session icon, and more options.
Shared Listening Experiences — Group Sessions
While Group Sessions have been in beta development for some time now, their UX has been choppy at best. In order to listen to time-synced music/shows with their friends, users need to share links with their friends in other apps, and this process can be simplified.
Tapping on the group session icon in the top right opens up an overlay sheet from the bottom. From here, the users can start a group listening session with synced music and podcasts. Since we access this from the chat page of a particular person, by default the session will start with the person in question.
Group sessions can also be started from the Friend activity page itself.
More friends can be invited within the app without having to share links on other apps.
PART FIVE
Potential Impact of these Solutions
Spotify is an app that impacts the lives of millions of people on a daily basis. As a consequence, any improvement to the app and its UX makes lives easier and contributes to Spotify’s dominance in the music streaming space.
Revamped Home Tab Layout
One of the biggest new areas of expansion in the audio segment is podcasts, and original shows and Spotify like all other players is investing heavily into this space. Thus, having two separate sections for music, and other content allows for easier discovery, giving podcasts and their creators the attention and limelight they deserve. It enables people to get to what they want quicker, and introduces curiosity into the user’s mind to explore a new app section that has popped up on their home tab for the first time. It can also onboard many first-time podcast listeners in developing markets such as India where many people are unaware about the concept of a podcast.
Streamlined options menu on the Now Playing screen
This puts the actions users commonly take while listening to music within easy reach, eliminates redundancy, and integrates efficiently with the Friend Activity section to enable fluid sharing of music without leaving the app.
Friend Activity Section:
The Friends Activity section is an entirely new direction in which Spotify has not yet ventured into (at least to this extent). In my opinion, enabling social sharing within the app can increase user retention, since they don’t need to leave the app to share music with their friends and family. They can converse within the app, and listen to music and shows together, something which has picked up steam ever since the pandemic started.
People can discover new music and shows just by seeing what their friends are listening to, thus enabling facile and frictionless recommendations.
It is my personal desire to not let this turn into another social media app and consequently, I did not go down the route of adding additional social features such as stories, likeable posts etc. I wish the app to remain an intimate, comfortable space where people can listen to the music and shows they love and share it with the people they care about, without the worries and negativity associated with social media.
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