Spotify: Introducing Party Blend
Project Background and Goal
The connection between humans and music is undeniable. Music moves us at the level of the body, the brain and the group. The interpersonal synchrony that we achieve through making or listening to music links our minds and bodies, enhancing social cohesion, bonding and other positive outcomes. Right now, in the midst of a period in which the need for social bonding is perhaps greater than ever, we are glad to see platforms like Spotify enhance that connection.
Spotify’s mission statement reads: “To Unlock the potential for human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and become inspired.”
I will be working on, Enhancing the experience of connecting users through music, by adding a feature to Spotify’s app, while aligning with pre-defined brand guidelines
Project Timeline: 40 hours/ 2 weeks
How I discovered Spotify
When I first downloaded the app, I remember being extremely impressed by the dark theme, Clean UI, and how it was so different from other streaming services in the market! I spent the following years with Spotify, becoming the closest of friends and now we don’t go a day without each other. While I enjoy using the app daily, transitioning into the field of User experience design has made me curious about how far the social aspect of the app has developed, and if I could generate ideas to enhance it. Hence, this project presented itself to me as a way to follow my passion for music, and design!
Design Process
The design process I followed consisted of 5 stages. Discover, where I conducted secondary research and Interviews; Define: where I explored creation of personas, and defining project goals; Ideation, where Information architecture helped create the structure and the content; Prototyping consisted of visual design and wireframing, before building the prototype, and Testing it with users in the final stage.
STAGE ONE: EMPATHIZE
During this stage, I studied the Industry in-depth, along with the top competitor’s and Spotify’s focus user group to gain a better understanding of the context and market.
Research goal
• Understand Industry and Market
• Identify project scope
• Understand the user’s pain points, motivations and priorities.
Research Methodologies
1. User interviews to have fluid conversations that include a set of prepared questions to understand how users listen, share and connect through audio on Spotify and other music streaming services.
2. Online Survey to validate findings from User Interviews
3. Competitive research including studying competitor’s in the market and their offerings through their apps.
Key Findings from Secondary Research
• With the fluidity of music genre crossovers and audiences looking for the next big thing, music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music have come up with playlists that are less focused on genre and more on lifestyle and cultural preferences.
• The global music industry has been majorly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the worldwide lockdown, almost all concerts were cancelled. Musicians had to postpone their projects or release them online.
• Increase in connectivity speed with 5G has become one of the hottest trends in the global music streaming market.
Competitor Study
I put together a checklist to compare Spotify with other streaming services. It’s important to study the habits and successes of other apps so that I can perhaps incorporate an idea in the feature I will be adding.
See below for a checklist:
Conducting User Interviews
As the most frequent users of Spotify in the United States were revealed to be adults aged between 18 and 29 years old, I Interviewed 10 users within this age range, with the goal of understanding how users listen, share and connect through audio on Spotify. I also wanted to note down any problems or difficulties they might have while using the app. I have documented the breakdown of Interview participants, along with key Insights I derived from the user Interviews.
Online Survey
After speaking to some users and arriving at some key insights regarding listening to music in a group setting, I wanted to validate these findings further by asking a few questions to a much larger audience.
The following screenshots of an Instagram survey I conducted, had over
300+ respondents.
Persona
To conclude the research phase, I created a persona that is based on the information gathered from my interviewees, and sum total of my secondary research. This helps me zero in on the type of person I’m creating this feature for. All design decisions going forward were based on this persona. The person I created is “Riya”, a 24-year-old Software Engineer from India.
STAGE TWO: DEFINE
During this stage, I defined my Design Problem, along with ideating how to go about solving it. I also defined the overall project goals through research.
Defining the Design Problem
Using my persona’s goals and needs, I develop Point of View statements and translated them into How Might We questions. This allowed me to define the problem before thinking about solutions.
How might we develop a solution to help Riya play music that align’s with a larger group’s Interest & taste?
Validating the Design Problem: I arrived at the problem statement after conducting research and Interviews, and decided to further validate it by checking Spotify’s Ideas community, where users post Ideas/problems they are currently facing on the app. I found that some users also stated facing problems relating to my HMW statement.
Source: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ideas/ct-p/newideas
Defining Project Goals
To identify goals that consider both Spotify’s and Riya’s priorities, I mapped out business goals, user goals, and technical considerations. The overlapping areas of this diagram identified the project goals, where I focused my time and effort.
Introducing Party Blend!
Based on my research and user interviews, I identified a problem that a lot of users have in group scenarios where they are unable to play music everyone enjoys.
Aligning with the business, user and tech goals- this is where my idea for “Party Blend” comes in! Based on the concept of Blend (Made for two), which was Introduced by Spotify in 2021 and is currently in beta testing, I have come up with a solution that offers Blends to a much larger group of people.
But how does it work? Through Computing and Machine Learning, an algorithm would be developed that identifies tracks (from a maximum of 5 genres) that most users have heard before/liked based on their listening history. If more than 90% of users in a group have a song in common, it gets added to the Party Blend.
Product Feature Roadmap
Noting the shared user, tech and business goals, I looked back at ideas generated and determined which ones could be further developed into Party Blend. The product roadmap that was established outlines specific details for each, based on prioritization.
Information Architecture
Informed by the features and priorities outlined in my product roadmap, I created a revised app map/ Information Architecture for Spotify, showing how the new feature would integrate within the existing architecture of the app.
STAGE THREE: IDEATE
During this stage, I started creating the structure that my feature would follow based on the IA (Information Architecture) and sketching.
Task Flow
I started this phase by creating a quick task flow that takes the IA and details what the potential user will experience and their decision at each stage of creating a Party Blend.
Low Fidelity Wireframes (Paper Sketches)
In order to bring the new feature to life, I created low-fidelity wireframes. (Pencil and paper) The plan here is to create a few solutions based on the research thus far and the IA (information architecture).
Below you can see paper sketches:
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
Creating Mid-fidelity wireframes was Important in understanding how the structure of my paper sketches would look while incorporating the Spotify UI Elements based on the application’s design system.
I also tried UX Writing during this project and tried to keep it consistent with Spotify’s TOV.
STAGE FOUR: PROTOTYPE
During this stage, I visually designed each of the screens based on my wireframes and the design guidelines provided by Spotify. I also mapped out how each screen would flow and connect to each other.
High Fidelity Wireframes
The high fidelity wireframes brought the concept of Party Blend to life!
I referred to Spotify for Developers for Design Guidelines. These guidelines have been developed to ensure that all Spotify users receive the same delightful user experience — no matter which platform they listen on.
STAGE FIVE: TEST
During this stage, I conducted usability tests of the feature I added over zoom or in person using Figma Mirror, and made priority revisions.
Conducting a Usability Test
I conducted the usability test of the new feature to 10 users, and asked them to complete two tasks which are explained and demonstrated below;
Task 1: Create a Party Blend Playlist, and share the link with your friends
Task 2: Edit the Playlist playing permissions after creation
Insights from Usability Test
The creation + share flow was pretty straightforward and 100% of users were able to create the Party Blend seamlessly. However, many users stated they would like to choose more than 1 genre while creating the Party Blend. Hence, the prototype was revised to select up to 5 genres for the Blend.
Learnings + Takeaways
This was an amazing experience. I believed I achieved all of what I set out to do. Again, the object of this exercise wasn’t to create an entirely new product but to add a feature to an existing one, while seamlessly weaving their brand and message throughout.
It was also a great learning experience! I got to practice my user interface skills creating and recreating the Spotify Brand, and am super happy that Spotify is so transparent with their design system.
I am excited to add new features to existing digital products in the future.
I feel a lot more confident with this ability after creating this case study.
