role
product designer
skills
user interviews, product thinking, visual design, wireframing, prototyping
tools
figma
This quarantine, I had some extra time on my hands. In addition to creating my art/design instagram: @beccy.design, I also took a look at improving one of my favorite music streaming apps: Spotify.
In particular, I gathered some data from user interviews regarding how users share music to their friends on Spotify. Spotify is amazing for so many things, but there seemed to be room for improvement in Sharing Music. To solve this, I created Spotify: For You From Friends, a playlist of songs that your friends recommend to you.
I considered how this would look on both Desktop and Mobile, as well as from the perspective of the user sharing / receiving new songs. I also considered Spotify's current design system.
For You From Friends [Mobile Prototype]
User Perspective
Demonstrating the flow for how users might share songs with their friends through the Spotify App.
Friend Perspective
Demonstrating how friends might find their “For You From Friends” Playlists in the “Discover New Music Section”
For You From Friends [Desktop Prototype]
Friend Perspective
User Perspective
Design Breakdown
Process
Current Model
Currently, on both desktop, online, and mobile, Spotify users can share songs, albums, playlists, or podcasts via multiple social media apps such as Instagram Stories, Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, Telegram, Skype, and Tumblr. Users can also opt to Copy Song Link, Copy Spotify Url, and Copy Embed Code.
Spotify is one of the largest music streaming platforms available all over the world. The main goals of the company are both to allow artists to have a platform to debut their music and talents, while giving listeners the opportunity to constantly discover and share new music. This is evident in the multiple playlists that Spotify’s machine learning algorithm are able to generate for all users based on the current music that they listen to. This keeps playlists fresh and pushes users to continue using the app to stream more music.
Problem Space
I conducted some quick interviews with Spotify users. Those who share music usually share songs by copying links to send via iMessage or some other messaging platform; however, those song links often get lost in the sea of messages between two individuals or a group chat. Users are often too lazy to go back to find the link or even forget about the song.
Goal
The goal of this case study is to explore the ways that Spotify can offer in-application sharing between users, specifically between friends (users who mutually follow each other). Right now, there is no way to simply send a song or album to another Spotify user within the app. If users were able to do this, this would align with Spotify’s goals of promoting music sharing and discovering. While Spotify’s algorithm and software is extremely advanced in predicting music trends and what types of music listeners enjoy, the company can take advantage of human power by utilizing listeners’ friends.
Proposed Changes
There are two main changes to Spotify that the case study suggests.
First is from the sharer’s perspective. Users should be able to share songs with other users directly in the application. Similar to Tik Tok, which has become extremely popular due to the ease of sharing, users would be able to select “Share with Friends” from the Share menu. This would bring up a module where they can easily search or select from suggested friends to send the song to.
The second change then comes from the listener perspective. Because Spotify is built upon personalized playlists over DMs or messages, the shared songs would be compiled into a playlist that would be a part of the current Made For You section which has playlists Discover Weekly and Release Radar. This new playlist might be called something like “For You From Friends” or just “From Friends”. When opening this playlist, the listener can find all songs that other users have recommended and see who has recommended a particular song. They can easily then add these songs to their current playlists.
Design Rationale
The changes to Spotify are mostly subtle and feel natural. For instance, the Share menu already exists and only one option is being added. There is currently space in the Made For You section of Spotify for another playlist to be added. Ultimately, these changes promote music discovery and sharing.
Future Considerations
Creating this new way to share Spotify songs can offer useful data to Spotify. First, identifying which songs the user adds to other playlists can help generate better curated Discover Weekly playlists. In addition, perhaps if the same song is shared by multiple friends, it could have a higher ranking in the playlist order.
