Spotify DJ-Feature Addition

Take your Playlists to the Next Level

Adding a feature to an existing application presented a new set of problems and opportunities. As the world’s leading social sound platform where people can find the right music for every moment, Spotify wants to expand the way users interactively share music. Spotify would like to create a feature that allows users to collaborate, DJing their select tracks with other users in real time.

As a team of 3 UX Designers, we set out to research DJing culture, DJing practices, tools, and how to seamlessly incorporate this new feature into Spotify’s existing online platform. We were given 10 days to develop this feature for a responsive website or application that works well with iPad and/or iPhone. The following post is an overview our team’s methods, findings, insights, and a link to the prototypes.

Disclaimer: We are not affiliated with Spotify. This project was executed as an assignment for General Assembly’s UX Design Immersive to exercise newly-acquired UX/UI tools and skills.

Discovery & Research

Our research began by gaining a better understanding of what a DJ (disk jockey) is and what they do. With limited knowledge between the three of us, we set out to collect data. Our principal research methods were comprised of interviews, contextual inquiries, and competitive analyses. This research would then be further synthesized to create user personas and user journeys.

Interviews & Surveys

A survey with tailored questions to qualify candidates for interviews had been written and circulated through the social networks of each team member yielding 52 responses. While we were not able to obtain the large pool of specific candidates to interview, we gained insight on various “DJing” habits.

Interviews with practicing DJs revealed the differences between glorified music selectors and DJs. The differences lie in the intentional transition between songs, the relationship between a sequence of songs that follow after another, and the ability to read an audience. DJs are always on the hunt for new music and venture down various musical rabbit holes jumping from one source to another in search of inspirations.

More interviews have been conducted and revealed our different types of DJs.

• Tastemakers — The dinner party DJs who either curate playlists and are always “in charge of the music” or the aux cable hogs.
• Hobbyists –DJs who are experienced in mixing music for their own pleasure and leisure. They use analog or digital platforms and may perform for smaller audiences.
• Professionals — Performing artists who DJ for a living and mix music professionally.

Interviews conducted with musical enthusiasts revealed a desire for more tools and a lower learning curve. Users are searching for an easy to use/easy to learn DJing application that can also be used on “auto-pilot.”

“I want to sound more professional, but sometimes I just want to the app to do it for me.”

Contextual Inquiry

In order to gain a better sense of the equipment DJ’s use, I took a trip to a local Guitar Center and performed a contextual inquiry in the DJ & Lighting department. There I met Marvin, one of the managers of the department. While he has no background or actual experience as a DJ, he considers himself highly technical and was able to learn the equipment as he would a computer program. He pointed out that the main components a “DJ” would need from any piece of equipment to the do the bare minimum a DJ should be doing. These components consist of a fader, two decks, cues and levels.

“It’s so simple nowadays… You’re a DJ if you can match up lines. All you got to do is read lines [wave forms] and match ’em up.”

Though my experience experimenting with these DJ controllers and software was relatively painless, I immediately recognized the challenge at hand in translating these tools into a web application feature that Spotify users can learn and use.

While some traditionalists may argue that modern DJing has been stripped of all its original novelties, modern musicians would argue that though DJing tools have evolved along with the learning curve, it will always boil down to different ways of self-expression.

Competitive Analysis

As a team we also examined the competitive landscape to learn which platforms DJs are using to mix their music, share their music, and collaborate with other DJs. A deeper dive into examining other DJing applications revealed trends amongst the different features users use. These features and applications can be seen in the diagrams below.

Pacemaker

One application in particular stood above the rest and presented a unique opportunity for this project. Pacemaker is a DJing application native to iOS that can be used on tablets and mobile devices. Part of Pacemaker’s infrastructure utilizes Spotify integration to pull music and allow users to access their online libraries. Apart from the endless supply of music a user has access to, Pacemaker provides a well designed and organized interface that allows users to mix their music with similar functionalities that hobbyist and professional DJs use. While these mixing tools are not nearly up to par with standard DJing applications, it provides all the fundamental tools most commonly used tools to mix music.

As a team, we found that trying to create the perfect DJing feature that anyone can use is close to impossible given our time constraint and the goals we set to accomplish. The preferences and learning styles of our users varied too greatly to be able to find a happy medium. Instead, we found an opportunity for integration that lends itself both ways. What Pacemaker lacked in social components for their users to share their music and collaborate, Spotify offers the perfect platform to fill that void. Our initial task in creating a feature for Spotify has now turned into a business opportunity and an area for integration.

Balancing the blending of Pacemaker and Spotify into a feature meets the needs of our users as they are in the search for:

• The ability to take turns selecting tracks with other users in real time
• DJ together online, in real time
• Allow for listeners to listen/join in on live experiences
• The ability to capture and share DJ sets
• The ability to provide feedback

Personas

With a budding partnership between Spotify and Pacemaker in place, it was time to dig deeper and revisit our users to further determine who they are with respect to this new application integration. We took to affinity mapping to sort out the behaviors, preferences, technical empathies, pain points, and areas of opportunities to create three robust user personas. These three personas would further dictate the various components that would be added to the feature.

Bryn has been selected as our primary persona to reflect the average tastemaker that uses Spotify to create playlists and play music. Bryn is also unique in that she is open to pioneering new things if it means she’s the first to introduce it to her friends. Bryn wants to take her dinner parties to the next level by DJing with Spotify and while she has the technical empathy to learn the new Spotify DJ feature for herself, she doesn’t have the time.

Designing for Bryn has kept this project in check and prevented us from designing more than we needed to. Our feature and prototype doesn’t need to perfect, just perfect for Bryn.

“When it comes to music, I’m like a fat man who can’t cook. But if you can give me the proverbial Blue Apron of djing i’ll totally do it!”

Our other persona, DJ You-Ex, represents the hobbyist and professional DJs while Eric represents the vast majority of Spotify users who will use the new DJ feature to explore new music. Their profiles can be seen above.

Sketching , Ideation & Wireframes

With our personas in place and our Pacemaker integration planned out, we mapped out a user journey and created a scenario, as shown below. These user journeys will later be translated into user flows.

As a team we conducted a design studio to rapidly generate interface designs, icons, and break down each component of the feature into individual elements.

Time boxing these sketches allowed for us to dump all of our ideas without interrupting each other and turning down any idea prematurely. Conducting this design studio also gave us some breathing room as a team to reexamine the feature holistically and critically examine the necessity of various components.

User Journeys and User Flows

App Map

Prototyping & Testing | Usability Lab

For this project we had a unique opportunity to have users test our initial prototype in a usability lab setting. It was organized to function like a speed-dating science fair type of environment where users come in one after another to test. After three tests, various elements and areas of opportunities have been highlighted. We learned as a group that creating a more robust script would have yielded better consistency in our user testings. Though each test participate was given the same task to complete, our instructions varied slightly with each participant thus leading different areas of confusion and ambiguity.

For this usability lab, we opted to test with high-fidelity wireframes as opposed to mid-fidelity wireframes. We felt that presenting a prototype that resembled the Spotify interface would give users a sense of comfort and familiarity with the layout. When adding a new feature to an existing application or program, it should not interfere with any other feature or disrupt the user’s habits.

Iterations

A number of iterations have been made as a result of user testing in a usability lab. These iterations were made to help streamline the user flow and assist in task completion.

A number of our user testings have revealed hesitation went prompted with multiple options. Various items have been rearranged to give the more important options a sense of hierarchy.

We have also iterated our buttons and microcopy to clear any residual ambiguity. Users could not fully understand the difference between DJ and DJ Together. The distinction between using the new DJ feature to mix your own playlists and joining a live DJing session was not evident in the buttons and microcopy.

Our iconography and button placements have been iterated as well for better discoverability. In order to maintain the integrity of the original Pacemaker interface, we moved all auxiliary functions off the main interface and onto the song menu. We have also hidden the chat/suggestion menu to reduce the clutter and help keep the host DJ fixated on mixing music.

Prototypes (web & mobile)

Web: https://invis.io/9D70L7SR6
Mobile: https://popapp.in/w/projects/5717b0a2d206f1921e3f4536/preview

Final Thoughts

This group project required a significant amount of research before we could take any steps forward in any direction. The lack of knowledge between three of us and the open-ended possibilities had us going in circles for the first two days of our research. It wasn’t until we were able to define what a DJ was and determine what a DJ does, did we have the confidence to move forward.

We approached this project as a feature integration project as opposed to creating the feature from the ground up. Many existing applications already have various partnerships with Spotify to serve as the main database for music. We thought that this would be an opportunity for Spotify to reach out a hand to others and join in creating something new, using each other’s assets to create a unique user experience.