Redesigning our music streaming experience - a Spotify case study
Redesign of the current Spotify mobile app
November 13, 2023
Background
In 2008, Spotify transformed the music streaming experience. Their expansion into podcasting introduced innovation and attracted a new wave of listeners. Today, Spotify offers over 100 million tracks, 5 million podcast titles, and 350,000 audiobooks, catering to a diverse audience of great size. As the leading audio streaming subscription service, they boast over 574 million users globally, including 226 million subscribers across 180 markets.
Why this redesign?
Part of what makes Spotify such a loved and used app by millions of users is the ability to personally curate your listening experience. As someone who listens to music in various settings, whether it be while I am studying in a cafe, or commuting, I take Spotify with me everywhere.
I downloaded the Spotify app on my phone in 2019, and with my Premium plan I used it to make playlists and play my favorite albums on shuffle. As years passed, new features arrived, such as “Smart” shuffle, Magic Recommendations, a “Just for you” section, and a very highly curated Home page. Although I appreciate the effort in creating a personalized listening experience, I began to feel as though I was being forced to listen to new music with the amount of recommendations being given to me. I also felt frustrated that my Home page displayed an album I only listened to once, as if it is one of my go-to’s.
Overall, the app lacks simplicity. I have trouble navigating Spotify smoothly with the abundance of song suggestions and images, and the interface just feels very crowded. After analyzing my own user experience, I set out to learn about those of others’ and improve its interactivity.
Empathize → User Research → Brainstorm → Ideate → Wireframe → Prototype → Test
Overview of Current State
Reviews from Existing Users
Shuffle function → Inconsistent Shuffling patterns, Will only cycle threw newly added songs, Can’t Shuffle through all songs in the Library
Reviews for the mobile Spotify app on the Google Play store
Design Timeline
User Research
Survey with Existing Users
I created and sent out surveys to better understand existing or previous Spotify users — questions ranged from how frequently they use Spotify, to the reasons they chose this streaming service, to any features they would like implemented or changes. All 12 responses consisted of college students. I used the survey responses, as well as the context from my user interviews, to guide my affinity mapping.
From my survey responses, I was able to uncover multiple insights about the user experience.
How often users use the app
How users discover new music
Key takeaways from written responses:
What should stay the same:
Personalization: Users appreciate the curated recommendations that appeared on their feed.
Recommendations such as “Daily Mixes”, the “Similar Artists” section, or “Uniquely yours” playlists that are based on what the user listens to make it easy to discover new music. Having these features curate playlists specific to the user’s listening habits provides a more individualized experience.
Aesthetic design choices: Users liked the minimalist look of the Spotify app and the visually appealing layout.
The overall layout of the app is very user-friendly, and the simple color palette allows the focus to really be on the artist and album photos rather than the interface of the app.
General recommendations: Users enjoy the features that recommend what artists and songs are trending at the moment.
Sections such as the “Discover Weekly”, “Popular Albums” or “Discover new emerging artists” make staying up to date with the current popular music very easy. Having these less personalized features allows users to truly engage with what a lot of people are listening to and see what is trending.
What should be improved
Cluttered home page: Users stated that the layout of the Home page is easy to navigate, but extremely cluttered. There is “too much happening in the app.”
With the abundance of images and recommendations, users mentioned feeling overwhelmed. Some do not even scroll to see the whole Home page. With the amount of recommendation sections, sometimes the recommendations feel like a far reach to some users, and not even personalized.
Recently played: Users mentioned that the uppermost section of the Home Page displays their Top 6 most recently played artists or albums, rather than their Top 6 most played ones.
The selection overall feels very random. A user could play an album once and it will stay on their Home page.
Library organization: Although playlists saved in the Library can be sorted by various filters and users can pin up to 3 of them to the top of the page, the layout still feels quite cluttered.
The process of opening the app, clicking to the Library tab, and finding the user’s playlist of choice could be made much smoother. Users mentioned wanting to be able to manually edit the Home page to feature what they want, rather than what Spotify thinks they want.
I consolidated possible ideas, categorized them, and spent time selecting key features to focus my redesign on.
I reduced the amount of images overall on the Home page and Discovery feed by keeping only small icons of artist or album photos. I also made edits to the Library so that the Gallery view is in columns of 3, rather than 2.
Final Design
Chosen Points of Improvement
Declutter Home page - Minimize the amount of content & deliver a user-friendly experience that makes listening to go-to music easier
Customizable Home page - Allows users to manually place artists, albums, or playlists on their Home page
Efficient usage of screen space - Minimize the size of images & decrease the use of unnecessary words
Separate Discover feed - Create a separate space to discover new music that doesn’t interfere with users’ regular listening
Lo-Fi Wireframing
After analyzing user input, I brainstormed solutions through designing low-fidelity wireframe and roughly designing user journeys.
Design System
The Spotify design system is not made publicly available. I retrieved colors & fonts similar to the ones on the existing UI and designed new components to make the interface more enticing.
I reduced the amount of scrolling necessary on the Home page, and made it feel more personal by moving all recommendations to a separate Discover page. Additionally, I changed the randomized selection of the 6 Most Recently played tracks at the top of the Home page to be the 6 Most Played tracks/artists.
1. Minimalistic Home page + separate Discover page
2. Customizable Home page
I added a Favorites section that allows users to manually add and remove their favorites artists, tracks, shows, or albums for easy access on the Home page. Go-to’s should be quickly accessible, so this feature aims to allow for that experience.
Solutions & Final Design
3. Less use of images
Too many pictures → Overwhelming amount of photos in the interface
Recommendations → An excessive amount of unwanted recommendations, Cluttering Home page
Minimalistic Home page + separate Discovery page
Customizable Home page
Reduced abundance of images
Before
After
Before…
Reasons to use the app
After
They had positive feedback, as well as input for future iterations of this design!
Likes
“Most played” on the Home page is more valuable than just having recently played items shown
Use of circles + squares is visually enticing
The Favorites section is useful, and allows for easy access to go-to’s
Separate Discovery page allows users to find new music when they want to, without being forced to
Before…
I demoed the redesigned Spotify prototype to 5 existing Spotify users. 2 of the group members had participated in my initial survey.
Wants
Removal of “+” signs and circles for parts of the Favorites section that aren’t filled in, for a cleaner look
Instead of having the pen icon to edit the Favorites section, have a long-press option to delete items from the section