UX case study: SoundCloud embedded players.

I would like to share how I approached a design challenge that I had to complete as part of the recruiting process for the Product Design position at SoundCloud.

The Task

SoundCloud has an embedded player that artists and content creators can implement on their websites and blogs. The embedded player generates approximately 25% of all anonymous plays making it a vital acquisition tool. However, SoundCloud have never optimized it as a growth lever, and no one has touched the experience for years.

There are three main KPI’s and problems areas:

1. Signup conversion and click-through rate: The embedded player is not effectively driving signups or traffic to our website.
2. The total amount of shares: While the overall amount of shares is increasing, this is not true for the embedded player. In other words, the feature is not gaining traction.
3. Monetization: Big business like newspapers are using the embedded player as a feature on their website, adding significant business value. However, we let them do this for free.

Imagine that it’s the first day of the project, we have an exploratory design phase in front of us and these are your first tasks:

1. Learning plan: Identify knowledge gaps and questions you would want to answer before pursuing the project. Prepare a list of approximately 5–10 research questions. If relevant, include a proposal of how to find an answer. (Eg. “Run a survey”)
2. Swot analysis: Do a quick overall evaluation of the growth opportunity for the embedded player using the SWOT framework. (It’s fair to make a few assumptions.)
3. Design approach: Lastly, create a plan for a few design exercises or methodologies relevant to the project’s early stage. What would be the next steps, and why?

Approach

Photo by William Iven on Unsplash

Desk Research

First, I wanted to learn more about SoundCloud as a brand. I search for their brand values, value proposition, business model and did a stakeholder map. This allowed me to understand where SoundCloud stand in the market and how it differentiate from its competitors. Their brand values and USP helped me better understand their customer base and have a more clear idea on how to solve their KPIs.

Customer Journey Map

I mapped out the journey of the listener interacting with the embedded player. This helped me to identify key touch points where KPIs should be addressed.

Types of embedded players

I searched for examples of the different embedded players to understand the characteristics of each of them. I did a UX analysis of the status of the player before-during-after the user interacted with it and with this I was able to already identify pain points and areas for improvement.

UX analysis of the embedded players

Visual Player

HTML5 Player

Mini Player

Learning plan

After analyzing the three types of players I concluded that the first thing I will do to kick off the project is to run a usability testing session to validate assumptions and filled out knowledge gaps.

KPI 1: Sign-Up conversion

• How many of the users that interacted with the visual player created an account on SoundCloud?
• How long does it take users to click on CTAs while interacting with the visual player?
• How many users clicked on or closed the modal screen?
• Which of the CTA buttons users interact the most with?
• Does the amount of information displayed on the visual player affect the sign-up conversion?
• Unlimited interaction features increase or decrease listeners motivation to go to SoundCloud?
• How is SoundCloud enabling the user to complete the outcome they set out to do?
• How easy or difficult is for the user to complete the sign up?
• How long it takes the users to complete the sign up?
• Do users know what to expect when they sign up to SoundCloud? (cost, features, benefits)
• Is the sign up process working in a way that is familiar to the users?
• What motivates users to go to SoundCloud?

Usability metrics to compare performance between the three players

• What do users accomplish the most when interacting with each player?
• Which of the players has the most sign-up conversion? Why?
• Which of the players convert users from player to SoundCloud website faster?
• Which one of the players make users more curious about exploring additional content on SoundCloud? Why?

Assumptions to validate during the usability testing session

• The amount of information and CTA on the visual player make the sign up process more complex for the users.
• Users are not motivated to Sign up on SoundCloud because the visual player offers all what they want or need.
• Reducing the CTA and interactive features increases sign up conversion.
• Users than interacted with HTML 5 or Mini player were more curious to explore additional content on SoundCloud webpage.

KPI 2: Shares

• How many of the users interacting with the players shared a song?
• Which of the three widgets motivated the user to share a song the most?
• How long does it take the user to share a song in each of the players?
• What interactions happen before the user decided to share a song?
• What is the motivation for users to share a song?
• What type of nudges can be introduced during the listening experience to motivate the user to share a song?

To be validated during the Usability test:

• Is it clear for users how to share a song from the embedded player?
• How can the information hierarchy be redesigned to reduce the time and effort it takes the user to share a song?
• How can we reduce the cognitive load on the visual player to give more emphasis to the share CTA?

KPI 3: Monetization

I searched for SoundCloud business model and did a short competitor analysis to understand how competitors are monetizing embedded players.

Spotify and SoundCloud are Netflix and Youtube respectively of the music industry. While everyone else is busy making an apple to apple comparison of these two platforms, we will like to focus on the fact that the user bases are different and SoundCloud needs to monetize that, rather than adopting the subscription plans as Spotify, Apple Music, and Deezer.

3 out of 4 competitors give only 30s audio preview and then users are forced to sign up while interacting with the widgets.

1 out of 4 competitors give incentives (4.50) to the artists/creators for every user that has signed up to the service through an embedded player.

HMW monetize the embedded players without affecting the experience for listeners and artists?

• How is the widget helping the website to gain traction?
• Who will be the key stakeholders when monetizing the widget?
• Which key resources can SoundCloud acquire from websites were widgets are embedded?
• Which of the stakeholders should pay for the widget?
• What benefits will bring to SoundCloud to partnership with companies were widgets are embedded? (Wix, Social media, Squarespace)

SWOT Analysis

Design Approach

The following charts showcase a initial roadmap to address the project.

-

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions or will like to start a conversation about UX recruiting processes, UX job offers in different companies or industries just drop me a message or feel free to connect on social media:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angegarcia17/

Portfolio: http://angegarcia.com/