Spotify Shared
An in-app user to user sharing experience.
Project Overview
Problem:
Spotify's limited sharing options pose a challenge for users looking to easily share their favorite music and podcasts with friends. This can result in a slower, more cumbersome experience for those looking to share the sounds they love. How can we enhance the app's sharing capabilities, allowing users to seamlessly recommend playlists, podcasts, songs, or artists to their friends within the app, thereby streamlining the process and making it more enjoyable?
Background & Inspiration:
Spotify's unwavering dedication to human-centered design has long been a source of inspiration for me, as has my deep passion for music. These two driving forces led me to undertake a UX design project with the aim of exploring potential feature concepts for the brand. My primary objective was to tackle a common pain point that I and many others have encountered - slow sharing times. I have observed this challenge within my own social circle and believe that with the right design approach, this issue can be resolved in a way that enhances the overall user experience on Spotify. Through this project, I aimed to bring my design skills and love for music to the forefront, and to make a meaningful contribution to the Spotify platform by creating a solution that improves the lives of music lovers everywhere.
Solution:
A seamless, easy-to-use feature that allows users to share content effortlessly within the app, without the need to navigate away from it.
My Role:
Ideation, Research, Prototyping, Usability Testing
UX Research
Key Takeaways from User Interviews:
Uncovering the pain points and desires of Spotify's user base was pivotal in enhancing the value of the sharing feature. By conducting interviews, I gained a deep understanding of the unique needs of dedicated Spotify users and leveraged these insights to drive the design of impactful sub features that elevated the overall user experience.
Competitive Analysis
Because not many streaming services have user to user sharing capabilities, I wanted to see which competitors did, how they did it, and what could be improved upon. Looking at Spotify’s competitors also helped build strategy as to how this sharing feature could drastically improve business, the user experience, and make the brand stand out on top even further.
Looking at Sound Cloud’s sharing system:
Focused primarily on the desktop version, which offers user-to-user sharing within the site
Identified various message options available on the desktop version
Reviewed the current sharing options available on the mobile version
Examined the design of the mobile sharing options to better understand how users can share content on the go
Using the key takeaways from my user interviews as a foundation, I sought to bring my ideas to life by visualizing them. Although I conducted an in-depth analysis of the current Spotify app to understand how the feature could be integrated, I also looked to a competitor for inspiration. By examining their approach to a similar feature, I was able to formulate a clearer, more innovative idea that built upon their successes while avoiding their shortcomings.
MEET CAMERON, OUR USER PERSONA
Although the Spotify design team has created a set of user personas to work with, I decided to add one more that highlighted the specific users I interviewed. I drew from the specific experiences of my research participants which I know can be widely applied to a good portion of Spotify users. This helped highlight the needs and frustrations of my target audience for this feature, helping further identify how to design it.
Task & User Flows
I wanted to keep the interactions of this feature extremely simple yet effective. While highlighting how it would interact with other pages, I designed it to also have it’s own page for all of the sharing capabilities. Spotify continues to add sharing capabilities for the user but they tend to have a hard time locating it, causing them to either not use the feature because they are frustrated or only stick to one method, not using all of the options. This causes longer decision times, frustrations, and leads to the user giving up. By having one page dedicated to those features, through research I validated that it would make for a seamless process, more easily locatable and user friendly.
Wireframes
Branding & Visual Design Strategy
The visual design of Spotify is both simple and powerful, with an aesthetic that is both pleasing and cohesive. As I worked on designing Spotify Shared, I drew heavily from the existing icons and visual components of the app to maintain continuity with the brand. I also introduced new elements specifically tailored to the feature that would seamlessly blend with the existing design. Balancing these two objectives posed a unique challenge, as the new components needed to be both visually distinct and yet still harmonious with the overall look and feel of the app. Through a meticulous design process that balanced creativity with consistency, I was able to create a set of elements that both enhanced the user experience and felt like a natural extension of the Spotify brand.
Feedback & Usability Testing
By testing the V.2 prototype with actual Spotify users and closely observing their interactions with the feature, I gained valuable insights into the recurring frustrations they were experiencing. These learnings, derived from the feedback of Spotify users, enabled me to refine the feature and create its final iteration.
During the iteration process, I had the opportunity to present my ideas to a diverse group of Spotify users, developers, and designers I met while traveling through Spain and Morocco, gaining their insights through conversation as to how I could make this more user friendly to an international audience. Their insights on the language I used to communicate the feature throughout the experience helped lead to a stronger final iteration. The specific feedback I received from developers helped me to address some of the interaction design issues that users were having.
High Fidelity Prototype
Successes, Challenges & Next Steps
Developing this feature addition proved to be an invaluable learning experience as it allowed me to navigate an existing design system and digital product effectively. By creating a compelling user experience, I was able to generate excitement for the new feature among users. While the project posed time constraints that prevented the prototyping of all sub-features, I strategically prioritized the essential ones that aligned with the main task and user flows.
Designing for a mobile app presented a unique challenge due to limited screen space, and I had to carefully consider accessibility issues while prioritizing essential elements on each page. Working within Spotify's design system was challenging because of the various restrictions it imposed on visual elements. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the project and believe that the feature is much-needed and desired by Spotify users. My ultimate goal is to present this feature to Spotify's design team in the future.
Next Steps:
Make Adjustments:
Make design adjustments, including missing features, information, errors, and suggestions based on feedback
Develop more of the inactive sub-features on the prototype
Test:
Do more usability testing with changes and gather feedback to improve the overall site