Adding a notification feature to

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Overview

Spotify is the leading company in the music streaming business, with 158 million premium subscribers. It is one of the most used mobile apps in the world. However, its role as a music streaming platform could be diversified and amplified. There are features within Spotify that allow users to get tickets for concerts, buy merchandise, follow artists, etc but they are all scattered across the app, and most users are not aware of them.

The way that made the more sense; after research was done, to put all these features together where they could be constantly updated, in chronological order, was to simply create a notification button.

Duration of the project: 80 hours

My role: UX and prototyping, User research and testing

Tools used: Figma, Maze

Design thinking

This project followed the "Design thinking" methodology, so I will divide it in the following phases:

2. Define:

Problem statement

3. Ideate:

Ideation

Storyboarding of user flow

1. Empathize:

Research & Interviews

Persona development

Empathy map

4. Testing:

First testing

Iteration

Second testing

4. Prototype:

Sketching

Wireframes

Empathize

1/ empathize

This phase was important because without empathy with Spotify users, it would've been difficult to identify a real problem on a very well designed flow. Empathy was key to find a solution to an issue that is usually overlooked.

Research findings

Threats

• Large, powerful competitors

• Has not seen a profit yet

• Legal disputes

• Artists unhappy with their payouts

• Piracy

Strenghts

• Brand reputation

• Music library

• Available in most devices

• Algorithms that personalize the experience

• Affordable

Opportunities

• Many new and untapped markets

• Investment in video

• Partnerships with other platforms

• Podcast market

• Spotify as a promotional agent

Weaknesses

• Licensing fees

• Requires internet connection

• Very similar to other music apps

• Pays less commission to music owners than competitors

Competitive analysis- brands analyzed

This research shows that Spotify has a great opportunity to increase exposure for its artists promotional material such as albums or new releases. There is also a chance to differentiate itself from other competitors. Before the define and the ideate process, two series of interviews were necessary to achieve more comprehension of the user's behavior when sharing and discovering music

Interviews

First row:

Goals:

To understand how users share and discover music. Talking to users on this particular topic showed a few problems that they were experiencing on their usage across the app.

3 participants, male and female

Findings

• Average of 2-4 hours a day of music streaming

• They listen to music based on their moods or activities, but usually from playlists that Spotify suggests

• However, this "suggested music" feature does an ok job, because it bases its algorithm in what they have listened to in the past, not new music

• It is common to find new artists and music on other media, like Youtube, even on Instagram, which isn't music-oriented. Then direct themselves to Spotify or their music platform of choice. This creates a weakness, as this is an open opportunity for competitors to get those potential users

• Spotify features tend to be inconsistent across different artists profiles, and it plays a passive role for the most part when it comes to promote musicians new material, as well as making users feel connected to them

The second part of this interview will focus on understanding how we can solve a few problems, like the lack of a centralized place where users can find more about their artists, buy their merchandise, etc

Second row:

Goals:

Finding out how users connect with their favorite artists beyond their music and to understand how the lack of a “social aspect" of Spotify impacts the use of the app

Findings:

• Following the previous interview, research shows that for millennial users the biggest way to connect to artists is through other media, mostly social media (Twitter and Instagram)

Spotify takes a secondary spot for music discovery

•Only one user suggested Spotify’s algorithm does a good job of suggesting new music.

Spotify is good for:

• Find what you know you want to hear

• Somewhat good to suggest new music

• OK to find already created playlists

Room for improvement:

• More promotion for new music, artists and material

• Music discovery features

• Making the user feel connected to their favorite artist

The key takeaway is that users discover new music, promotional material (such as new singles and concerts) either word of mouth or directly from the artist on social media such as Instagram or Twitter. This creates a missing opportunity for Spotify since users could choose another platform to listen to it. For example, if a user discovers on Twitter, an artist, let's say Katy Perry, has a new song, they could go on Youtube, or on Apple Music to listen to it, instead of going on Spotify.

Even tho the features to enable that same connection listener-artist that happens on Twitter or Instagram exist within Spotify, it is not natural to most subscribers to use Spotify this way. Concert announcements are available under every artist profile. Ability to buy new merchandise is there too. Whenever a musician has a new song, Spotify adds it to its library. Yet most of this goes unnoticed.

Marissa Vincent- user persona

“I follow my favorite band on all social media to stay updated”

Location: San Diego, CA

Occupation: Sales manager

Age: 24

Gender: Female

Salary: 75k

Marissa loves exercise and running on her free time. She has saved some playlists on Spotify, that will occasionally add new music. Since listening to good music while she runs is very important to her, she is always on the look for new music recommendations. She usually gets them through friends or on Instagram posts from her favorite artists. She is also very social and enjoys going to concerts occasionally

Goals

• To stay updated with new music

• To enjoy her work outs with the best

music possible

Painpoints:

• Playlists that become repetitive or she’s listened to before

• Not knowing when her favorite artists released a new song

• Stopping her workout to find a different playlist

Brand affiliations:

Personality

Extrovert

Sensing

Thinking

Judging

Introvert

Intuition

Feeling

Perceiving

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empathy map

Define & Ideate

2&3/ define & ideate

We defined a problem which that was used also as a guide to ideate

Problem statement:

?

How might we let users know when an artist has a new song?

?

From this problem, I ideated and brainstormed using the "Crazy 8" technique, and developed a user flow through story boarding

The idea that made more sense in this case, as simple as it may seem, was to add a notification button to the main feed. A notification button would also keep Spotify existing features organized, and updates could be provided to the user in chronological order in a single place. For example, whenever a verified artist profile (that a user likes and follows) releases a new song we instantly let that user know, keep them notified and even more engaged with their favorite content

This would:

• Make Spotify the first point of contact with new songs or information about artists

• Add value to the experience

• Unite existent features within Spotify in a single place, updating them on regular basis in chronological order

Storyboarding

Prototype & Testing

4&5/ Prototype & TESTing

The process of prototyping was simple. To start, I read the Spotify design guidelines, which can be found here. It was very important for this project to adjust to the existing branding, without major modifications; including patterns.

So, after reading the guidelines and studying closely the patterns that guide the user through Spotify flows, I created the first prototypes, using a typical notification button in form of a bell that was also consistent with other icons within the app.

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Even though this is a small feature, testing was required with regular Spotify users, to determine if the patterns they are used to;

had been applied correctly, as well to determine if they found the notification feature intuitive to use

The prototype was tested with 2 users on a first round, and 2 other after iteration.

Affinity map

Painpoints

Success

I would just say "Play now" so it's a bit more clear.

"I'd rather see the names of songs or singers in a bolder typeface"

"I wasn't expecting to change screen when i tapped it"

"I didn't see the notification pop up on the prototype"

"This makes total sense as to checking for new stuff"

"The dots at the end of the notification mean you can check more about it"

I think you did a really good job of seamlessly incorporating a new feature here

the prototype was pretty straight forward for me

Modifications

• Before, when users would tap on the notification about a new song, that song's screen would come up. As on another Spotify feature that is similar (recently viewed) the song just changes on the play bar at the bottom instead, but users stay on the same screen. Then the song's full screen comes up when the user taps that song. This was changed, to adhere to Spotify's patterns and what users are used to.

• Changed the wording, making it simpler, to help users understand what was going on immediately, for example, Dua Lipa's song is out now. This seemed to improve the experience for users.

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Final flow and prototype

5

3

1

2

4

Test the prototype

test the prototype

Reflection and next steps

The empathy part of this project was the biggest one, in my opinion. Without empathy and understanding the user, it is impossible to find flaws in an otherwise seemingly perfect flow, where all needs are presumably covered.

Using existing branding as a constraint definitely makes you think outside the box and the design thinking process is truly used as a problem solver, but adjusting to existing patterns was a great learning experience.

As for next steps, I would suggest to keep exploring possibilities that Spotify has, to take a more active role in users sharing and discovery habits.