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Spotify Revision Study
Broadening Accessibility to the Older Generation


Research



To begin this project, I brainstormed several ideas about where Spotify can use improvements with regards to currently existing features or new features that fit their branding and vision.In addition to using sticky notes to map out possible avenues for improvement with Spotify, I conducted an analysis of my personal likes and dislikes with Spotify and its competitors Apple Music and Soundcloud. In looking at these existing applications, it allowed me to expand my thinking of what could be possible to take from one and implement in another while fitting with Spotify's image.

Interview Main Takeaways

  • Apple Music fans love their curated mood playlists and how easy it is to discover new musicians through the app. A participant even said they switched from Spotify to Apple Music to escape the advertisements played between songs, and stayed because they found out Apple Music pays their musicians better and has better curated playlists.
  • Soundcloud fans pledged their loyalty to the app because of the discoverability of music as well as the plethora of remixes and indie user-created tracks.
  • Spotify fans enjoyed the design of the app itself that combines its sleek interface with its various features (artist radio, discoverability playlists, Spotify yearly wrapped).


Overall...

  • Discovering new music is just as important as being able to listen to the music the user already loves. Whether or not it is easy to discover something new can make or break the user’s experience.
  • Each app has their own separate exclusive features and playlist algorithms, which can be a major factor for users to decide where to subscribe.
  • Visual aesthetics mean a lot to a user, regardless of how many unique features the app may have. The more visually simplistic and pleasing, the more desirable a streaming platform becomes.


Competitive Usability Analysis Main Takeaways



Spotify
  • Bright Points:
    • I like the distinction between artists and playlists.
    • Exploring by genre is nice!
    • Large album covers makes the music feel easily digestible and creates a minature "spotlight" for that album/song.
    • The recommendations of searches - makes the song and artist I'm looking for feel more popular.
    • The additional songs underneath that artist that are recommended when looking for a song - I can get to what song I want to listen to faster.
  • Pain Points:
    • I prefer the layout to be a specific order (muscle memory) for the home page, otherwise its unreliable.
    • wish that my most listened to playlists or liked songs were on the home page instead of the recommendations from Spotify first.
    • I wish that finding similar artists to what I listen to was on the search page.
    • Have to scroll a long time to find an artist that is similar to the one I’m looking at in an artist's page
    • Hierarchy on a given artist's page is not very good
    • Concerts are listed on their page - it would be nice if this was on a different page because even if I’m interested, I instantly forget I saw it.


Apple Music
  • Bright Points:
    • Has personalized "Top Picks" (similar to Spotify's algorithm for crafting tailored-to-you playlists)
    • "Staff Picks" playlist from the staff adds a nice personal touch
    • Visibility of the Radio section of the app where you can listen on air or live radio, great for discovering music in a new genre or if you're indecisive.
    • In the Library section of the app, the latest releases from an artist you listen to show up at the top and you can organize what tabs are under the Library section.
    • Can sort playlists in a specific order in your Library
    • Can search something from your Library at the same time you're searching for a song in the Search directory
  • Pain Points:
    • The Home page is similar to Spotify's in that it doesn't bring anything new to the experience and is not used very much.
    • Is the Staff Picks playlist used?
    • Color scheme may not be the most friendly accessibility-wise.
    • For the queue, you can only order by next or last which is not great if you're queuing during a playlist or album.


Soundcloud
  • Bright Points:
    • When searching for something, you're able to filter between different results (such as "Everything", "Tracks", "People", etc...
    • The interface showing the different decibel levels during a song adds a unique touch to Soundcloud, allowing users to feel more in tune with what it means to produce a song as well as skip ahead to parts of a song that has higher bass/volume.
  • Pain Points:
    • Some of the tracks have the wrong artist associated with them
    • Adding to a playlist is generally unintuitive - the option is hidden behind a meatball menu (generally not the most intuitive for older users either).




Ideate



When I started ideating, my mind instantly wandered towards increasing accessibility to the older generation. I thought of my father, who was born in 1963 and currently listens to music in the car most of the time, usually driving to work or doing errands. For years, he's downloaded music as .mp3 files and manually listened to every song on his computer if he wanted to listen to music.

Recently, he had purchased a new generation car that has a clean screen interface for music and connects to your phone to play music, ultimately leaving him realizing that he must change with the times if he wants to continue listening to his music.

Personas and User Journey Mapping



With this in mind, I created three refine statements that follow would follow my dad (Gregory) and his current problems with listening to music and using apps.
  1. As someone who needs to drive a lot for work, Gregory wants to be able to easily find his music in the fewest number of taps so his eyes can stay on the road.
  2. As an older person, Gregory wants to be able to find his music and add it to a playlist in a simple way. He loves larger icons and intuitive design because he doesn’t want to put on his glasses every time he wants to put on a song in the car.
  3. As an older person, Gregory doesn’t want to feel out-of-touch or old when using any app. He doesn’t care about what’s popular or finding new music, he just wants to listen to what he loves with no strings attached.


With these refine statements in mind, I sketched out three ideas that would (in theory) solve this problem:



Idea 1: Enhanced Car-mode

  • Allowing the user to be able to switch to a different playlist easily while in car-mode (currently not a feature)
    • Card that would show the current playlist playing at that moment in time where you're able to tap on it and very enlarged icons (playlist covers) are shown in a pop-up that can be easily tapped on while driving
  • Car senses when you are driving (this functionality is the same as it currently works for Spotify)




Idea 2: Removal of icons for simplicity

  • Removing the meatball icon when searching songs, therefore making it so that the only option that you could have with a song is to tap on it
  • Menu itself would be de-cluttered (remove features that are not used very often so eyes do not need to scan over them
  • Playing the song in the menu instead of just tapping on it
    • The idea here is that many users use the search functionality to interact with the song (queueing, adding it to a playlist, etc..) rather than listening to the song the whole way through in the search menu. With this in mind, we can hypothesize that playing the song can have the same priority as the other features and put them in the menu together.
  • Redirecting the app to the Library page after adding a song to a playlist instead of staying on the search page.
    • This should be a setting that is easily turned on/off in Settings. Generally, older users (or those who do not have English as their first language) try to not mess around with settings very often because they think they will permanently change something for the worse. However, younger people are generally more comfortable with the idea and enjoy exploring different settings.




Idea 3: Gregory's music is loved too - and not knowing popular artists can be okay!

  • See photos of the artists he listens to and their recent releases (and a "Good Morning" message at the top of the screen, something to create that connect)
  • Prioritizing his recently played songs and playlists over new releases or other Spotify-driven playlists (such as Daylist or Discovery Weekly)
  • Easily accessible radio in a fixed area on the Home screen (scrolled down from the priority playlists and songs of the user)
    • Title saying “Join [Number] others in listening to [Artist he likes]”
  • See genre’s by a universally-recognized symbol, not a picture of the artist to decrease feelings of age-gap and alienation between what is popular and one's personal preferences in music






Implement



Low-Fidelity Wireframe

With this in mind, I decided to move forward and flesh out idea #2 with a low-fidelity prototype interface that would help him navigate Spotify. My goal was to create an interface that doesn't operate on the pretense of knowledge of icons while also generally de-cluttering the app. If implemented, the more compact view would be available in settings to be turned on.


User Interviews

For my user interviews, I presented a working Figma app of the high-fidelity prototype to 3 potential users and observed them using the app. The only instructions given during this time was to "Add a song to a playlist from searching it up."
With this in mind, my findings were summarized as follows:

Participant 1 (Beginner User):Had an easy time adding a song to a playlist and navigating the app. When it came to adding a song to a playlist, the move to tap on the song without the menu was frictionless, and although they understood how to add a song to a playlist, they did not see the point in adding the same song to several playlists and didn't experiment with this feature. When inquired as to why, they said that they simply believe that it's not necessary and they would never do that to begin with, adding that if they the kind of user that would add the same song to multiple playlists, it would be helpful to have an additional indication (checkbox, sentence saying to tap on several playlists, etc..) that this is possible.

Participant 2 (Moderate User): Had difficulty understanding the instructions given originally because they did not understand the concept of a working app prototype. After this hurdle was overcome, they had no difficulties adding a song to a playlist except for not knowing (due to no indication) that a song could be added to several playlists simultaneously. Commented on how though the process of adding a song to a playlist was smooth, there can be more than one method to adding a song to a playlist, such as seeing "Recent Songs" and "Recent Playlists" on the Home page and being able to tap and drag songs into playlists this way as well.

Participant 3 (Frequent User): Adding a song to a playlist felt frictionless but they immediately noticed that the user flow is a little different to what it normally is for Spotify but couldn't "put their finger on it." Though they use Spotify regularly, they were not aware that you could add a song to several playlists at once and think it would be a good idea to implement more of an indication. They were also appreciative of the increased sizing for the playlists and were empathetic about the experience of accidentally playing a song in public when they wanted to press on the meatball menu. Overall, they enjoyed the implementations but similar to the other two participants, asked that there be an indication for being able to add a song to several playlists.


Present



High-Fidelity Prototype



Conclusion



The primary research done for this project informed me on the older demographic and not only how they interact with Spotify specifically, but with mobile apps as a whole. Icons that the younger generation grew up with and may be intuitive to can take a real learning curve for the older generation. Users of music apps vary as much as music itself varies - pleasing everyone can be difficult when it comes to implementing entirely new features, however, increasing accessibility and making the app itself smoother and easier to use for all demographics is always a welcome change to any app.

Studying how people currently use Spotify as well as common grievances across all demographics allowed me to create changes that was cohesive with the branding and current design of Spotify. Spotify already has an extremely well-designed app but heavily relies on symbolism that may not be familiar to every demographic. By using their precedent and not creating massive changes to the screen layout and the look and feel of the app itself, users that were interviewed with the new changes could barely notice too much of a difference.

Making playing a song in the pop-up menu, avoiding fat-fingering playing songs, and more by removing the meatball menu was widely successful with those users who tested it. The number of changes themselves were small and there are several different avenues for continued work.
  1. Creating a more accessible and safe version of Car Mode
  2. Adding more ways than one to add songs to a playlist (perhaps dragging recently played
    songs from the Home page into a recently played playlist on the Home page)
  3. Exploring different ways to select multiple playlists to add a song into
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arzumanova.v(at)northeastern.edu