Ironhack Week 4| Add a feature: making Spotify social

Four screens from my Spotify “change a feature” challenge which incorporate more social actions in-app

“We kind of look at music as something very natural in people’s lives. I mean, most of us can relate to music in some sort of shape and form, and if you think about it, most of us remember the first time we kissed someone, what kind of music was playing or the song that was playing on our friend’s birthday.”
— Daniel Ek (Spotify CEO and co-founder)

In Week Four of Ironhack’s Mexico City UX/UI bootcamp we turned our focus from UX and research elements to the latter part of the design process, more UI. Before launching into an original design project, we worked with existing apps which we are already familiar with and understand. I was tasked with adding a feature to the Spotify mobile app, in a 4-day sprint. I learned how to critically analyse the flow of an app after taking Spotify apart into atomic design elements and putting it back together again.

What could we add to Spotify to augment user experiences?

Spotify is one of the most successful music streaming apps and for that it’s hard to criticise. I’m a happy user of it. My friends are satisfied users. Most people I know are happy users.

What I came up with after researching music streaming reports, auditing social media reviews and interviewing music streaming users was an opportunity to incorporate more social elements into the app. As Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek noted, listening to music is a social activity. I found that even though most users are accustomed to stream music with headphones (on public transport or while working, for example) they still value the social aspect of sharing music.

Currently, a user needs to leave the Spotify app to share songs or a playlist with friends. A few releases ago the company did have in-built messaging but decided to remove it as users weren’t really treating the app as a social network. What I proposed to do was to tweak certain features so that adding friends to collaborative playlists could be done within the app, instead of externally through a messaging platform — for someone such as Diego López, below.

Diego’s user profile includes information from interviews with real people, whose frustrations include not being able to see friends as much as they’d like to and working long hours. His quote, “I recommend music to friends to share emotions I’m feeling in the moment, or to share memories or experiences from my life.”

How can we get to know Spotify in its current state?

After narrowing down my focus to improving collaborative playlists and adding social features for millennials lacking social time, I got to work on project elements including a moodboard, user flow and site map, as well as atomic design elements.

1. Moodboard

2. User Flow

3. Site Map

The current mobile site map (simplified) with my features added (in green).

4. Style Tile

5. Style Guide (excerpt)

How could we bring the project to life?

Check out my InVision animated prototype here.

What futures could we include in collaborative playlist design?

Some next steps I propose include:
-Incorporating QR scans to share playlists at live events (such as music festivals)
-Creating a “silent disco” treatment so that friends can listen to playlists in synchronized time
-Publication on the home page (so that users can share their collaborative playlists with the global Spotify community)
-and-
-A voting system (so that each group member has a say in which songs appear in the collaborative playlist).

This week my major lesson was in consistency. A major UX value is a product which is streamlined and easy to understand. I understand the value of consistency in verbal communication given my journalism and writing background, but it was fascinating to see how elements work in combination and how interface design does really involve repetition, as well as exciting experiences.