This is my case study proposing a slightly better Spotify Free experience.
What's Spotify Free Team's Ultimate Goal?
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Turn free users in to Premium users.
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Increase the number of daily active users and keep them loyal to Spotify so that there's a possibility of them turning into Premium users in the future.
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Give everyone an opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by music for free.
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Continuously deliver the level of service users expect from the industry leader by being the best at understanding the users and anticipating their needs.
When it comes to brand’s visual presence in a music streaming service, it is crucial to remember that it has to be noticable, but invisible at the same time, as the design language should not be louder than artists’ brand identities. Spotify has experienced a fast growth over the past few years. Having one unified design system that's scalable, and shared across different design teams is necessary to build a better user experience and a stronger branding.
What you’ll see below is my proposal for future development to make Spotify Free experience more delightful, and potential solutions for some of Spotify’s problems.
1. Onboarding Screens
There are currently no onboarding screens when a user first installs the app. I’d like to get data of sign up rate and perform an A/B testing with and without onboarding screens to see if having them would increase the initial sign-up rate.
2. Home
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It seems unorganized and takes longer to find what you're looking for as Music and Podcasts are displayed on the same page.
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This page is where you can be strategic about what contents to show for more monetization opportunities.
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Currently, there isn't much personalization done for users other than Daily Mix Playlists.
Proposal:
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Create separate tabs for Music and Podcasts, so it's less scrolling for users that are only looking for either just music or podcasts.
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Show sponsored contents on top of the page which are personalized based on user data, and constantly change based on time of day so there's higher chance that a user clicks the content.
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Show a personalized message that changes based on time of day on top of the page.
3. Search
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It’s not easy to find what you’re looking for as it’s not organized well and everything is in one page, which requires a lot of scrolling.
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Colour scheme on this page can be better so that all the colours work well together and not conflict.
Proposal:
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Create separate tabs so that it’s easier for users to find what they’re looking for. (Overview, Podcasts, Charts, Genres, Moods, New Releases & Discover)
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Use gradients to give it a more visually stimulating design.
4. Music Player
Music evoke people's various sensations/emotions. It makes people happy, cry, calm, or give them energy. Our job as a designer is to create an experience and design that capture those moments and emphasize with their burst of emotions.
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Proposal:
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Make the design more delightful and cheerful by using gradient audio wave instead of a white bar.
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Use line icons to give it a more modern and minimal look.
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Add back and next buttons to the minimized Now Playing View.
5. Premium
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The design language isn’t consistent across the apps and the web.
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The design isn’t cheerful and there is too much text.
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Users cannot upgrade to Premium within the app.
Proposal:
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Make the design language consistent.
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Change the background colour to something more cheerful and make it more visually stimulating and easy to understand without using too much text.
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Create buttons that redirect to a mobile web page so that it’s one less step for users to upgrade to Premium.
6. App Store screenshots
Current screenshots
Ideas for future features
1. Location Customization
To continuously win the music streaming race, it's crucial to meet a level of expectation Spotify's target market - the Millennial generation - has. Whether they're at work, on the way to school, at the gym, or relaxing at home, they want an experience that understands them, anticipates their needs, and to be delivered appropriately.
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One of the solutions to that is to add location customization to give users more personalized experiences and suggestions no matter where they are.
2. UI Gradient
Spotify is known for its expressive, bold, and colourful brand identity that incorporates trendy duotone effect rolled out in 2015. This differentiates Spotify from its competitors such as Apple Music and Google Play Music, as Spotify's visual expression creates a sparkling and rich user experience that evoke users' emotions when listening music. I was trying to think of ways to incorporate this brand identity more in the app, and come up with a fresh design that reflect the core of the Spotify brand.
My proposal is to change UI gradient based on time of day to communicate vitality.
Morning
Morning
Afternoon
Night
3. In-App Messaging
Direct and mutual artist-to-fan relationship
We’re living in the era where social media has a huge impact on people’s lives. Adding social experiences to Spotify where users can discover music, share it with friends, connect and engage with artists they love all in one platform would differentiate Spotify from its competitors including Apple Music, and continue pulling ahead in terms of paid users. This is where I see a huge monetization opportunity beyond the royalties and ad revenues.
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A few years ago, Spotify’s subscriber base wasn’t big enough for artists to spend money there in order to have a hit.
However, Spotify has grown its size and as of the second quarter of 2019, they had 108 million Spotify Premium users up from 52 million in just over 2 years.
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Between the large user base, the data, and being the biggest music streaming service, I believe Spotify has the power to offer artists the best all in one tool to increase their fan base. And one of the keys to make that happen is the In-App Messaging feature.
Video ads
Audio ads
Display ads
Problem:
Spotify currently has ads for brands, but they're are not designed to help artists grow
their audience within Spotify.
Solution:
Artist focused service that leverages Spotify's huge listener data in addition to Spotify For Artists analytics app and Fans First email campaigns.
Help artists grow their careers by providing data and a platform to connect with their loyal fans directly.
Help artists grow their careers by providing data and a platform to connect with their loyal fans directly.
Spotify
In-App
Messaging
In-app Messaging
Artist-to-fan native marketing channel where artists and playlists owners can communicate directly with their fans.
Benefits:
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Increase conversion (From Free account to Premium account)
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Increase app engagement, user retention and daily active users
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New monetization channel
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Generate artist loyalty
Sketch
Navigation Style
When designing UI & UX, it's essential to create a navigation structure that's logical, predictable, and straightforward, so that users can get to the right content with a minimum number of taps and swipes.
The goal is to design a navigation style that supports the app structure and purpose without drawing attention away from the content.
Users should feel natural navigating through the app and they should always know how to get to their next destination.
Framework
