An Improved Spotify Social Experience

The Problem

Spotify has an existing social infrastructure that’s not being utilized to its full potential.

DESIGN NOTE:
This is a hypothetical design project based on an article I’ve written in UX Collective:
“Why hasn’t Spotify improved its social features?”

My Role

User Research

Ideation

Wireframing

Userflow

Platforms

Web App

Mobile App

Year

2020

Why?

Understand the goal.

There’s a growing trend on social media platforms where users share their music and podcast recommendations with their audience. Spotify is a great product for listening and finding new music and podcasts, but it lacks any solid social features. Current user profiles lack any purpose other than showcasing a user’s playlists. By improving the social experience for users Spotify could:

Create a unique feature that stands out from the competition

Increase user engagement and loyalty for the product

Gather user data, improving the overall product

Improve the product appeal to a new demographic

Funnel existing outside social media engagement back onto the Spotify platform

Increase the number of users

Create a space for artists and podcasts to share updates directly on the platform

Who?

Define the audience.

Active users who stream audio on the mobile and desktop platform

Users who share their music preferences and playlists on outside social media platforms

Musical artists and podcast creators looking to engage with their audience

Brands and Social Media influencers

Younger demographic, Male and Female, age 16 - 30

UNDERSTANDING THE USERS CONTEXT AND NEEDS

As an engaged Spotify user I want to be able to see what my friends and people I follow actively listen to and recommend.

As an Artist or Podcast I want to be able to share my work with my followers directly on the platform.

As a user who shares my music or podcast suggestions on social media I want to have a location where my audience can follow me for future music or podcast updates.

IMPACT VS EFFORT

Prioritize, choose idea

Improve existing Spotify sharing features on outside social media platforms

Improve the UX for the existing social features on Spotify

Create a new social experience with new features on Spotify existing-user-profile

Based on the Impact vs Effort exercise solution 2 would be the best approach. Improving Spotify’s existing social features would not introduce anything too unfamiliar with existing users. This prevents any steep learning curves as the features are already familiar. This solution would also be easier for development and execution.

Wireframes

Desktop Wireframes

Mobile Wireframes

Spotify Feed

Introducing Spotify Feed, an area on your Spotify profile where you can see the most recent updates from your friends, artists, and podcasts you follow. Spotify users are now able to share songs, playlists, and podcasts directly on the platform. When an artist and podcast share newly released songs or albums to the feed, their posts appear stylized. This directs users to their newly released content and creates incentives for artists and podcasts to post on the feed.

The new feed was designed to fit with the existing Spotify design language. This can be seen when the feed is displayed on Spotify’s home with previous existing content.

The Spotify Feed also adds a new dynamic to user profiles. Previously only public playlists were shown, but with the addition of a feed to profiles users have a greater incentive and purpose to browse their friends and see what songs, podcasts, or playlists they share.

The feed on mobile is located where users access their podcasts and music. Adding a feed to mobile user profiles also helps improve the mobile profiles dynamic.