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Motivations

1. Influence consumption

One of the main goals at Spotify was to have a greater influence on the consumption with more recommendations and Spotify playlists being played. At this time, the library represented more consumption than everything else on Spotify combined, making it a prime spot to impact the consumption.

“We aim to turn Spotify into a service where we bring the good stuff to you, rather than one where you are expected to do the work of finding great music”

2. Simplification

Spotify had too many overlapping options in the main navigation causing unnecessary friction. I wanted to combine and trim.

Spotify was very cluttered and everything more or less looked like a gray list. I wanted to create a distinct user centred space.

There were too many feedback signals and actions making us confusing. I wanted to simply it down to a simple heart.

3. Usability issues

People struggle to understand the save behaviour. This is something we hear in usability studies as well as observe in data.

“It saves to your music but I do not know what that means”

A sentiment often heard in user research sessions.

Even though the vast majority of people save things into their library, only of fraction has ever played that content.

Ideation

As I often do, I started this project with an office wide ideation session. In this workshop I used different cards for context and features that people draw from a pile. This helped constrain and focus the ideas generated.

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Sketches

The quickest way to explore your thoughts are always with pen and paper. I use this a lot and it was especially important in a large project like Me that you could take in so many different directions.

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Wireframes

I knew animations was going to be a vital part of the Me design so I incorporated it as early as I could, including in the wireframing stage. These wires was created in Principle and could be created in matter of seconds.

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Prototypes

I continuously produced prototypes with varying degrees of depth. Some were mainly meant to try out a micro interaction while other was built to put in from of user at our user testing sessions. The tools I used for these were Invision, Principle and Pixate depending on my needs.

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Qualitative evaluations

In the me project we user tested it four times with both existing Spotify users and people who had never used it before. At Spotify we have dedicated user researchers who conduct the interviews but I take a very active part in providing hypothesis and asset for the test.

“Oh, wow, this is so much fun… It’s way different than what it is now.”

– Andena, user research participant

“This is 10 out of 10. […] I can’t think of anything else to make it more personal”

– Natalie, user research participant

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Design specification

As with my other large project, I created a design specification, mainly for the engineers. Writing specification take a bit of time and on smaller project you might not need them but I often find that they end up saving a lot of time and effort as they become the single source of truth and tracks all decisions made.

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Final solution

The final solution is a complete reimagination of what a digital music collection can be. The idea is that the user should not need to dive into sections and folder to find their favourite music. Instead, Spotify will create playlist that makes sense for you and surface them up for easy reach. For people who do want to explore their collection, the Me design offer a much more personal and vivid experience that celebrates the content a lot more than the old, list heavy solution.

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