Spotify is a music streaming platform that wants "to help people listen to whatever music they want, whenever they want, wherever they want—in a completely legal and accessible way.” As a streaming music service, Spotify is the group lead and it wants to stay that way.
Design and create a functioning prototype of a feature that is added to the Spotify app.
80 Hours with 4 weeks
User Research, Interaction Design, UI, Branding, Prototyping, Usability Testing
Figma, Illustrator, Photoshop, Zoom
The focus of this project consisted of research to better understand the user's pain point and how we might develop a feature to solve a problem. To begin the research process, I set research goals to remind me what I needed to learn.
To understand the user's behavior and process of sharing music
Discover pain points of sharing music
Discover the meaning of sharing music
Two recent studies—one in the US and the other in Japan—found that music doesn't just help us retrieve stored memories, it also helps us lay down new ones.
When we find out that someone shares our musical interests, that increases how much we like them
Music increases contact, coordination, and cooperation with others
Two recent studies—one in the US and the other in Japan—found that music doesn't just help us retrieve stored memories, it also helps us lay down new ones.
When we find out that someone shares our musical interests, that increases how much we like them
Music increases contact, coordination, and cooperation with others
Hi, my name is Tuan, and thank you for taking the time to help me today. I appreciate your time and feedback. For this project, I will be trying to learn how people share music and the struggle that comes with it. This information will help me get some insights from your experiences to determine the next step for this project. There are no right or wrong answers, so feel free to share your thoughts. This study will take no more than 30 minutes.
The first interview round resulted in more broad sharing experiences.
In the second round I focused on discovering how people shared music in the car and learning about the pain points associated with sharing music.
Based on my two rounds of interviews, I created my persona to meet the needs of my users. Then, to understand my persona further, I worked on an empathy map to articulate what we know about the particular user.
I used this exercise to ask "how might we" questions to brainstorm 20 problems. This helped me find out 3 strong ideas to move onto the next stage of my design process.
How might we express our emotions with someone?
Next step, I divided the paper into 8 sections and set a timer for 5-minutes. The point is to create as many ideas as possible quickly and then repeat the process after a short break.
After going through several ideas, I selected one design idea that stood out to create a storyboard. While in the rough stage, the storyboard helped me develop the interactions within the screens.
The feature focuses on enhancing and amplifying the memories we capture in our lives. It takes your photos and connects them directly to Spotify. This allows the user to connect certain songs tied to a particular feeling for that memory. This also helps encourage users to share their moments and create engaging conversations with others.
Using what I know from my storyboard, I can quickly create a user flow of the screens that the user will use.
Since this project focused on adding a feature to Spotify, there was no need to create the logo or UI Kit for this project. It helped me focus on designing the low-fidelity wireframes quickly.
The UI Kit was provided and designed by Spotify.
Moving into the high fidelity prototype, I implemented the UI Kit and images to bring it to life. Using the feedback from my usability testing, I made changes early on in the design process.
While going through the low fidelity prototype, I conducted usability with a few people to spot the pain points of the design. This was important so there would be less time spent going in the high fidelity. I also conducted a usability test with 8 participants on the high fidelity prototype. It helped me refine my design for few rounds of revisions.
Observe initial impressions
Discover pain points
Get feedback from user
Discover how they interact
Spotify High-fidelity prototype
Remote testing using Zoom and Figma web prototype.
8 Participants
Listens to music via music platform.
Due to the time constraint of the project I ask primarily my friends to help assist with my usability tests.
Thank you for taking the time to help me with this usability test. I have been working on designing an add-on feature for the Spotify mobile app. Through my research, I tried to discover how people shared music and what it meant to them. I will use this feedback to help me better understand what works and what doesn't. You will be given a task to follow through, and this should take around 15-20 minutes to complete. Due to the limitation of the prototype, not everything is functional. Feel free to talk out loud about your process and impressions of the feature. Before we begin, will it be ok if I record this session? So I can look back to analyze the feedback. Do you have any questions for me before we begin?
The task is to create a moment by selecting photos and combining them with music that will help convey certain feelings or emotions.
User completes the task
Discover pain points
Find any grey areas
I expect a 100% completion rate
I am anticipating there will be a few participants that will run into some minor problems.
After I went through my usability test with the 6 participants, I found some problems with my buttons. There was some confusion about what a + button would do if you click it. All participants did select the right buttons to complete the task but addressed their thoughts afterward. After going through some tests, I made the changes to my prototype and conducted a couple usability tests to determine if the changes were helpful. The results from the last couple of tests proved to be beneficial.
View PrototypeI had very positive feedback from my usability tests. In addition, most of the participants commented that they would be interested in using this if this feature came to Spotify. Through this design process, I enjoyed creating lots of ideas in a short amount of time. It was a little different from the other projects I worked on. I can see this feature be expanded in different ways through the app and possibly implementing video for an immersive experience. Some questions crossed my mind: Where will the user access their saved Moments? How can you add more music to existing Moments?
© 2022 Tuan Diep
