Case Study: Adding A Feature
UX Academy Course 2023
Research
To understand how Spotify users share music content (songs, playlists, artists) with their community, and how the sharing process can be more seamless.
Why?
There are many limitations to collaborating and sharing content with others, specifically on the Spotify mobile app. On the desktop app, users are able to view “Friend Activity”, a feature that displays what their friends are currently listening to, including any public playlists they have curated. However, this feature is not available on the mobile app.
On both desktop and mobile apps, there is the option to collaborate on playlists, however users are directed to either copy the share link to via a different communication platform (iMessage, Whatsapp), rather than directly notifying them in the app.
Goal
To understand users’ general experience with the Friend Activity feature on Spotify
To understand how users share music content to others
To understand the pain points of sharing music content with others
To understand what motivates people to share content
Objectives
Method
SWOT Analysis
Based on the survey responses, the interview questions focused on playlist collaboration and music sharing.
Interviews
Participants: 3 music-sharing platform users
All participants mentioned:
the frustration of having to switch between multiple apps in order to either share music, artists or playlists
the less clicks/least steps to be able to share content is ideal
that creating playlists together build or maintain connection with friends
it’s important to be able to add collaborators or songs easily to a playlist
having to share a link externally
2 participants mentioned that link sending does not provide a preview of the content in the messaging app
1 participant has experienced having to send screenshots
1 participant has never collaborated on a playlist
2/3 participants don’t particularly have difficulties with sharing music
Surveys
Participants: 10 Spotify users
A SWOT analysis of other music sharing platforms such as Apple Music and Amazon Music was conducted to determine current features that are useful and features that could be improved.
SWOT Findings:
Apple Music’s popularity is heavily dependent on IOS users, as shown in features such as Shareplay through FaceTime and building a community with those who have Apple IDs/IOS devices. This limits its reach to users and creates a barrier of entry. Amazon’s music is regarded as a leader in terms of sound quality, but the music recommendations are not as personalized, the selection is more limited, and there isn’t a feature that allows users to follow/connect with each other.
Because Spotify is heavily integrated with other social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc.) and is not limited to IOS or Android devices, it has an advantage in terms of connecting users with one another and sharing content with ease. Spotify users could benefit from a mobile app feature that reflects “Friends” that already exists on the desktop app. This could place Spotify even farther ahead in terms of the music content sharing space.
Keeping in mind Spotify’s advantage of being able connect users over different platforms and devices easily, I decided to conduct a survey on Spotify users to further understand what they feel is important, or what frustrates them about the platform. This helped to narrow down the focus for the interview sessions, and provided a sense of a the type of feature that could enhance the platform.
The key insights from the survey and interviews were converted into point-of-view statements (potential problems) along with how-might-we solutions (potential solutions).
POV Statement: Spotify users need to be able to share music content and playlists with others seamlessly within the app, because having to use multiple apps (Spotify, Whatsapp, iMessage, Telegram) to accomplish this is inefficient.
How might we create more of music sharing community within the app?
How might we reduce the use of multiple apps to share music?
How might we be able to easily add collaborators to a playlist without sending external links?
Ideation
I began developing ideas for a “Community” feature on the Spotify mobile app, in which users could interact more efficiently with other Spotify users. The feature includes being able to add others as “Friends”, which would allow them to share artists, songs, as well as collaborate on playlists directly on the platform, rather than having to share it externally.
After developing the idea, I mapped out user flows and task flows to depict how the steps a user would take through a product.
Information Architecture
User Feedback
Adding a blue notification circle to the Community tab icon, as users weren’t able to see that there was unread notifications in the community tab, unless they were in it.
When viewing friend’s profile pages, users are more interested in seeing their mutual friends than # of collaborators. They were also interested in top 5 genres and artists, which were also added to the profile pages.
Participants suggested that when they accept the friend request, there should either be a confirmation message, or take you to that new friend’s profile.
Participants had trouble finding the “share” and “add collaborators” button on song and playlists. The placement and icons of these buttons were from Spotify’s original design and was not adjusted as part of this feature, as it is meant to be an extension of features that already exist. Most Spotify users would already be familiar with the locations of these buttons, however, not all our testing participants were familiar with Spotify’s featured as they used other music platforms. Moving forward, I conducted user testing sessions only with participants who use Spotify regularly, as that would be a more accurate representation of the users of this feature.
If this feature were to release, it would be helpful to have a pop-up notification about this new feature upon opening the app, along with a tutorial on how to navigate it. This would be helpful to current users, and new Spotify users switching over from other platforms.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
I started by sketching mobile layout ideas for the Community feature, and how the Friends list would appear when users share content or add collaborators to playlists.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes [Figma]
The mid-fidelity wireframes were developed and tested by 3 participants using the Figma prototype link. Users were asked to download the Figma app to their mobile device and work through the following tasks:
Share the song to another user
Add a collaborator to a playlist
Open notification and accept friend request
Search and add for a user on the Community tab
Results
All participants were able to complete the tasks in a reasonable time, however there was hesitancy when it came to finding the “share” and “add collaborators” buttons on playlists and songs pages at the beginning of the prototype
1 participant mentioned wanting more relevant information on the Friend’s profile.
2 participants mentioned that there was no noticeable action or confirmation after accepting/rejecting a friend request.
Revised Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
High-Fidelity Prototypes
User Feedback
3 new participants were asked to complete the same tasks as mentioned in the mid-fidelity testing. I used the affinity clustering method, followed by a prioritization matrix to organize their feedback and determine the changes needed.
Recommendations
Based on the analysis of feedback, the following recommendations were determined.
Higher Priority
As these are going to be newly added feature, we should adjust “Added!” or “Sent!” confirmation words used to more accurately describe what the user did, in order to provide less confusion. We should add a confirmation after accepting or rejecting a friend request as well.
Clicking issues: The prototype should be adjusted so that users can click anywhere in the rectangular space around a friend’s name when sharing or collaborating, to select that person.
Add function to send multiple friend requests from community page. Although only one person mentioned this, as the point of the whole feature is to provide efficiency in sharing music content/building a spotify community, this is an important piece of the feature.
Unselected
Selected
Added Screen
Click to view map
Added Screen
Add back buttons in the process so users can easily see what they have selected, and automatically go back to Community page after sending friend requests.
Lower Priority
Adding tool tips to new feature functions. This could simply be a pop up when the feature is first launched to familiarize Spotify . users, but does not need to be integrated into the feature permanently
With the feedback from the mid-fidelity testing, I created high-fidelity prototypes using Spotify’s color scheme and branding to bring the feature to life.
In order to add the “Community” tab to the tab bar, I created an icon that aligned with the Spotify’s user interface.
Final Product
Concluding Thoughts
Reflections
During the interviews, other music platforms (i.e Apple music) were mentioned on several occasions, but the information was not utilized to its full potential. For instance, the interviews could have delved deeper into what users love about other platforms, that we could have implemented as a new feature in Spotify.
A few participants were hesitant to select “share”/”add collaborator” icons because they didn’t know what the buttons did or couldn’t find them. Since they were the starting point to many flows of this new feature, it would have been helpful to work on adjusting the placement, look, or caption of the buttons so they were more obvious to current and new Spotify users.
Next Steps
To notify users of this new feature, there should be a notification pop-up upon updating the app. It should walk through any shifted placement of share buttons on the playlist/song/artist pages, the “Friends” list that appears upon sharing, and the Community tab.
There should also be a way to customize the information on your profile. For instance, some may want to display if they are actively listening, other may want to hide this. Others may want to display their Top Songs, Artists, or Genres of the month. The next step would be to develop a Settings page to adjust these features.