Improvement features Spotify (Research)
UX Case Study
Hi everyone, today we are going to talk about some features we would improve in the app Spotify desktop, according to a simulated case study.
Let’s start with a brief description of the company and the app to contextualize us a bit.
Spotify is a digital music, podcast, and video streaming service that gives you access to millions of songs and other content from artists all over the world. You can use Spotify on different devices like computers, phones, tablets, speakers, and TVs (The website here https://www.spotify.com/).
Spotify was created in Stockholm, Sweden in the year 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. The company started as a small start-up, it has grown in the time, with 4.405 employees (2019) and 320 million users; Spotify has the free version and the paid one with 144 million users (October 2020).
What are the objectives of our case study?
In this blog, we’re going to take a case (UX problem) and we will think about possible solutions to give the user a better experience.
Problem statement
Let’s start with our fictional case study to improve “how Spotify users find music to listen to”, this exercise focuses on the Spotify desktop app experience.
After reviewing the business’ goals at the end of last quarter, the Research team wants to identify if there is an opportunity to make users’ stream more content. They have identified this challenge, proposed by a user called Michelle, below you will find her profile to learn more about it.
User and audience
Profile the user
User: Michelle
Age: 42 years old
Location: Lafayette, LA
Music expertise: 1/3
Software expertise: 2/3
Current occupation: Nurse Practitioner
Education: Master of Science in Nursing
Story: Michelle is a nurse at Lafayette General Medical Center. Her husband is a Marine, so she often has to take care of her four children before heading to work. To get everyone motivated in the morning, Michelle has a secret weapon — she blasts pop music that they love. Michelle also enjoys relaxing with music after a long day. But she is struggling to explore new music genres because Spotify’s recommendations match her kid’s tastes. So she ends up not listening to anything for her. She cannot afford to pay for an additional account.
Goals:
- Discover music other than what her kids listen
- Figure out her tastes
- Avoid to pay for additional account for family members
Needs:
- Content different from current Spotify’s recommendations
- Guidance among of all content on the platform
- A way to find again her music SHE discovered and liked
Wants:
- An area where she can discover
- Her own “space” where she can store her discoveries without ruining Spotify’s recos for her kids
- A tool that can help her figure out what she likes
Fears:
- Being overwhelmed by the amount of content present on the platform
- Not knowing where to start, what to look for
- Not finding music for her kids again after listening to new things
Roles and responsibilities
We are software developers who want to understand how designers work by solving a UX problem and writing a UX case study that explains the discoveries. Our team is conformed by Daniela Ramirez Gomez and Daniel Celis Tobon.
Scope and Constraints
This is the journey map analyzed for our team:
Michell wants to discover a new genre, but she gets upset when the platform does not offer her exactly what she is looking for and the navigation becomes a bit confusing.
How you can see in the graphic above, there are some points where her user experience is not good; instead, she feels disappointed, impatient, annoyed and she is frustrated at not finding what she wants.
Process and what you did
The main feature we have found is that currently there is a general search engine, but there is no quick and easy way to filter in each category (Browse, Radio), which prevents users from having easy access to the music of their taste since the categories are arranged randomly without following patterns.
Taking into account the above, new users to the platform have more friction and may become frustrated when they can’t find what they want. As a possible solution, we contemplate the following points:
- In the Browse category we think about implementing a filter that allows the user to organize the results in alphabetical order, by popularity, or by recent date. Additionally, we add a search button that allows us to obtain results of a specific genre. With this improvement, we can provide the user with greater ease in finding what they are looking for.
- This improvement would be applied in each of the genres or modes as well.
- In the Radio category, we think about implementing a section of radio stations, providing the user with access to hundreds of national and international stations, additionally, there will be a filter that allows the user to find stations of a specific genre.
- Finally, we would like to add an improvement to the notifications that the application launches when a user marks a song as liked since currently the notification is tiny and can go unnoticed. We would also like to give more information about where this music is being stored to users who just come to the platform and include a button that reaches us right there, the result would be the following:
- We were also contemplating the time of notifications, or even leaving them fixed and that the user must press a button to close, however, we concluded two things, one is that it would be a positive thing because the information would not be lost sight of when we are new users, and we do not know how the platform works, but after a while, it should be with a defined time so as not to damage the user experience by generating additional clicks.
Selected solution
In this URL you can find the interactive prototype of the solution that was selected for the Spotify improvement:
Conclusions
It is very valuable that the companies take into account the feedback of the users in order to improve and thus offer them the best experience.
It is important to always see to which public the created applications are directed and try to make them as clear, digestible, and easy to use so that the user is always satisfied. Keep in mind that Spotify is a platform that is used for people of different ages that like diverse genres.
