Project Overview:

This project reimagines Spotify’s shared playlist experience by focusing on collaboration, engagement, and social connection. Leveraging user research, competitive analysis, and iterative prototyping, we designed innovative features to transform passive playlist sharing into an interactive and engaging experience, encouraging meaningful music discovery.

Through user interviews, the persona was identified

1. Discovery Phase

Goal:

Understand user needs, pain points, and market gaps.

Actions:

• Conducted user research and identified that friends, not algorithms, are the primary source of trusted music recommendations.
• Discovered three main pain points:

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2. Concept Development

Goal: Develop solutions that address user needs and differentiate Spotify from competitors.

Features Designed:

1. Interactive Timeline: Displays who added songs and when, fostering collaboration.
2. Playlist Awards: Introduced accolades like “Spotify Winner” to motivate engagement.
3. Enhanced Emoji Reactions: Provided diverse emoji options to spark conversations.
4. Discovery Tools: Enabled users to explore music recommended by friends through rankings

Goal: Build and test features with users to gather feedback and refine designs.

Actions:

• Created low-fidelity prototypes for features like the interactive timeline and playlist awards.
• Iterated based on feedback, such as moving the timeline to a more intuitive location.
• Adjusted accolades to make their purpose clearer, adding more descriptive depth.

Low Fidelity Prototype

4. Validation Phase

Goal: Evaluate prototype performance and identify areas for improvement.

Testing Results:

• Positive Feedback:
  • Users appreciated the timeline feature, describing it as collaborative and engaging.
  • Emoji reactions were seen as a fun way to connect over shared playlists.
  • Accolades motivated users to explore new songs and sparked group conversations.
• Challenges Identified:
  • Timeline placement was confusing for users.
  • The purpose of accolades like “Spotify Winner” was unclear.
• Recommendations:
  • Replace the timeline with a story-like feature summarizing shared music trends.
  • Redesign accolades to be more intuitive and descriptive.

High Fidelity Prototype

Impact

The product solutions aimed to:

• Increase User Engagement: Through social features that deepen collaboration and interaction.
• Enhance Music Discovery: By encouraging users to explore recommendations from trusted friends.
• Boost Retention: By creating engaging shared experiences that keep users on the platform.

My Contributions

• User Insights & Competitive Analysis:
  • Conducted in-depth user research to uncover gaps in Spotify’s current playlist-sharing features.
  • Identified user pain points such as the lack of friend feedback and poor algorithmic recommendations, leading to recommendations being handled on external platforms like SMS or Apple Music.
• Feature Design:
  • Developed features like interactive timelines, emoji reactions, and accolades to create a collaborative and engaging playlist-sharing experience.
  • Designed ranking metrics to track user contributions, encouraging friendly competition and discovery of new music.
• Prototype Development:
  • Collaborated with the team to design low- and high-fidelity prototypes.
  • Iterated on features based on user testing, such as moving the timeline feature to a more intuitive location.
• Testing and Validation:
  • Facilitated usability testing to evaluate prototype performance, uncovering insights like user confusion with accolades and the desire for richer emotional connections through reactions.
  • Delivered actionable recommendations to replace underperforming features, such as transitioning the timeline to a story-like feature.

Artifacts

• Final Presentation Deck: Outlines the process, insights, and final recommendations.
• Prototype Designs: Includes wireframes and high-fidelity visuals for all features.

Props to my teammates Kal, Sophia and Chiayin for being the best team players throughout the entire process.