Splitting up user research work between “tactical” and “strategic” creates an artificial boundary that takes away from the potential impact of the work. In practice, tactical research is more powerful than we researchers give it credit for! — O n the Spotify Insights team, we believe that researchers need strong communication skills in order to influence the direction of our products. That is why many of us here are experts in communicating our work in a simple and digestible way to our stakeholders. We make decks, send newsletters…

Give your research a voice that can drive change across your company. — In this post, Emily Chu — Insights Manager at Spotify, encourages you to examine how you think about impact, and identify new ways to drive meaningful change throughout your research process. Amplifying impact is akin to a ripple effect — making small changes in how you think and do research can gradually create larger waves of influence.

How can you meaningfully break down the walls between your research participants and stakeholders? Here, Spotify Senior User Researchers, Akshay Verma and Kathy Lin, dig into the tips and lessons they learned from creatively engaging 40+ stakeholders through a longitudinal diary study with 60+ participants — and how they humanized research along the way. Let’s face it: stakeholder engagement can be tricky, especially for longer-term, foundational research. And it’s trickier still when teams are working remotely. …

At Spotify we aspire to make a great product for everyone in the world. When you think about it, that’s a lot of people! If everyone everywhere lived the exact same way, this would be a lot easier to achieve. But the reality is, our users have very diverse everyday experiences that impact how they use Spotify. When we were developing Spotify Lite, the small, fast, and simplified version of the Spotify App, we quickly learned that we needed a way to ensure we were building for everyone. …

I lead the Strategic Research team for Spotify’s Advertising Business Unit. After several years of seeing the benefits of doing mixed methods User Research in partnership with Data Science, I built this multidisciplinary insights team designed to provide data-informed directions for product and business executives. By triangulating 5 insights disciplines, our team delivers actionable insights that impact our 1–5 year goals and strategies for leadership.

Peter Gilks — Senior Director of Insights, Spotify Advertising Since 2016 I’ve led the Insights team for Spotify’s advertising business. Our role is to provide guidance that enables the product and business teams we work with to meet their objectives through evidence-based decision making and customer focus. We’re a multi-disciplinary team that covers both qualitative user research and data…

Since March, Covid-19 has completely obliterated ethnographers’ approach to face-to-face interviews. With help from Illustrator, Shanee Benjamin, Spotify Ethnographer and User Researcher, Chloe Evans, explains how the transition into research completely undertaken in a non-physical remote space has brought about some unexpected benefits as well as some challenges in data collection.

Peter Gilks, Senior Director of Insights, Spotify Advertising Since 2016 I’ve led the Insights team for Spotify’s advertising business. Our role is to provide guidance that enables the product and business teams we work with to meet their objectives through evidence-based decision-making and customer focus. We’re a multi-disciplinary team that covers both qualitative user research and data science…

Spotify’s experience isn’t defined or constrained by the bounds of a smartphone screen, and neither are our design and user research practices. People can listen to Spotify almost anywhere, anytime, on any device, and for many of us, it’s an all-day companion. As designers and researchers at Spotify, our challenge is to embrace an “audio-forward” approach in order to craft a user experience that spans contexts, situations, and environments.