Spotify
What’s your life’s soundtrack?
Introducing Spotify
Spotify is an audio streaming and media service provider. Launched in October 2008, Spotify gives users access millions of songs. Spotify Premium lets users enjoy ad-free music and offline listening. Spotify is available on as a mobile application, desktop application, and web player.
With Spotify, users have the ability to create their own playlists. Whether it’s to fit the mood or to create an atmosphere, users can create a sound unique to them. In addition to having access to song albums and podcasts, Spotify automatically generates unique playlists based on past songs played, such as: Your Top Songs, Missed Hits, Time Capsules, On Repeat, Daily Mix, and more. Users will also have the ability to collaborate and share their playlists with others.
To learn more about Spotify, click here.
Prototyping
The purpose of this video prototype is to practice creating a comprehensive video that communicates the motivation, usage, and functionality of a product using the mobile application component of the chosen product. The intended audience is a wide range of music and/or podcast lovers.
When prototyping the product, I kept the following question in mind: “Why Spotify?” For the video, I wanted to ensure that I demonstrated both the product’s value and functionality. In trying to understand Spotify’s established success, I began reflecting on why I use the product.
After narrowing down its reason for success to the access it provides users and its customizable features, I created a scenario for the video. In the scenario, a user has created and plays a playlist called “The Soundtrack of My Life,” which contains songs that is unique to some life events.
To accentuate Spotify’s value and functionality, I wanted to make the video feel like a “life trailer.” By doing this, I would be able to demonstrate the importance and capabilities of both access and customizability. Below is the storyboard I created for the video.
In the storyboard, the orange annotations indicate where the user would click. It starts with Spotify’s home screen. The user clicks on the playlist they desire, which in this case is the “Soundtrack of My Life.” The user then proceeds to play playlist and as the songs play, a video is overlaid over the albums so viewers can see what life events the song relates to.
When creating the video, I compiled a list of videos I wanted to include before creating a list of songs to match the videos. It was critical to base the songs on the videos and not vice versa to simulate the life scenario of unpredictable life, but customizable soundtrack. While no live shooting was done for the video because quarantine makes it difficult to film videos that feel light and inspiring, all used videos were personally captured in the past.
To edit and compile the videos, I used iMovie and used the overlay function to place the videos on top of a screen recording of me playing through the playlist. I changed the color filters for the videos to better match the color of the background. Additionally, as there was no narration, all audio used in the video does not belong to me. Using QuickTime, music was captured on Spotify and the button sound effect was captured from this YouTube video. Although Spotify does not make a sound when skipping songs, it was necessary to create an obvious break between songs to bring attention to the user actions.
Analysis
As revealed through the process of creating the video, video prototyping can be difficult. Before starting the process, I struggled to choose from the list of recommended products because I have not used any of them. As I started, I wanted to establish a cohesive narrative and to do this, I needed to know the essence of the product. Due to time constraints, I decided to use Spotify because of my familiarity with the product.
The video prototype was successful in its ability to showcase functionality and value. I was able to demonstrate functionality of Spotify by showing the user process of playing a playlist. I was also able to demonstrate value by integrating life events into the screen recording. However, there’s room for improvement in terms of conveying emotions and immersion.
In future iterations, I would further clean up the videos that were overlaid over the album covers. There are some video clips that have black borders in the video, creating a break in immersing viewers in the videos. I would also play around with the songs and use a storyline narrative— pulling viewers in with a “climax” as the video progresses.
Additionally, I would include a video of a person opening Spotify in real life to further solidify the purpose and value of the product. This also has the potential to better set the scenario for viewers as starting and ending the video on a screen recorded view of the application is not very engaging.
In terms of process, to better practice my video prototyping skills, I would challenge myself to create a video for a product I have not used before. This would take more time as I try to familiarize myself to the product, but would be a great learning experience. By doing this, I would be able to work on creating a system for identifying key functionalities and values. Additionally, I might be able to appeal to a wider audience by erasing any bias and niche use that comes with being an avid user of the product.
Overall, the scenario was effective for a wider range of music lovers and the idea was easy to translate into a video. I had a lot of fun going down the memory lane with the videos, but it was challenging to match songs exactly to the videos. I was able to capture some of the more fun videos and match them with upbeat songs, but it proved to be a challenge to portray a wider range of activities, emotions, and events. Including music adds an extra layer of complexity, which makes it both easier and harder to translate moments into 800 x 800 pixel videos.
