Presentation video for Spotify Space
Spotify Space
A new social environment for users to connect, share moments and discover new music
Overview
Context
Competition Entry for D&AD: New Blood Awards, Spotify Brief • Duration: 8 weeks • 2021
Award-winning project
Graphite Pencil winner in the D&AD New Blood Awards. View on the D&AD website here.
Role
Team of 3 UX Designers.
Shared responsibilities: Defining the problem space, ideating, UI design and script writing.
My responsibilities: UI prototype animations and After Effects transitions.
Team members: Maria Chanduvi • Haidar Darr
The Problem
Music is all about community; It has the power to bring us together in meaningful, social experiences. However with live music events not being possible during social distancing, we find ourselves apart and missing connection.
Current music streaming services struggle to deliver the same communal listening experience; the presence of other humans all experiencing music together.
Process
Discover
Research Phase
The Brief
This brief was set by Spotify as part of the D&AD New Blood Awards.
How can Spotify make the listening experience a social experience by enabling people to share the audio that means the most to them?
How can they help listeners build a deeper connection with friends and artists?
Target User
This project targets influencers on the Spotify platform. Influencers could be someone with thousands of followers, or they could just be that one person in every social group who influences the rest. Two key groups of influencers were identified by Spotify:
Social Trendsetters: Highly social with the perfect playlist for any occasion. Discovering and sharing music is a key experience for them.
Master Curators: Passionate music collectors looking to discover new music and proud to share theirs. Music is a core part of their identity. They enjoy crafting the own perfect playlist and collaborating with others online.
Assumptions
Assumptions around the user and the problem space were discussed and unpacked.
During times of social distancing, people miss hanging out and crave connection.
Online live music events aren’t engaging enough.
Music has the potential to bring people together around a shared activity.
Reframing
An initial HMW was articulated to reframe and focus the project:
How might we help Spotify users share the audio that means the most to them in order to make listening a social experience
Research
The brief, formulated from Spotify’s own user research, contained rich insights regarding the target users, their behaviour and their goals. To expand on this, we researched further by carrying out interviews with Spotify users as well as testing the existing social functions as a team.
As a team, we tested and discussed Spotify’s existing social features such as collaborative playlists.
Define
Synthesis Phase
Key Insights
The key insights we found after testing existing functionality and talking to users:
Users missed the human moments of connection at live music events; “It’s all about that moment when an absolute banger drops and you turn round and see your mate’s reaction.”
Users wanted to discover new and exciting music but in a meaningful and organic way.
Current social features, such as Spotify Group Session, function great for direct connection and listening but can be passive and do not feel like a human, real-world experience.
Using collaborative playlists or listen together functions, the user is unable to pick up on positive engagement or how others are reacting to their song choices.
Proto-Persona
To aid our ideation we developed quick reference proto-personas for each target user.
Social Trendsetter - Proto-Persona
Master curator - Proto-Persona
UX Vision Statement
There is an opportunity for a new Spotify feature for Social Trendsetters and Master Curators who want to share and experience music together BUT are separated by distance.
Develop
Ideation Phase
Ideation
Evaluating and developing concepts
After group discussion and freeform ideation sessions, It was clear there were three main concept areas:
Enhancing online live music experiences.
‘Rooms’ or ‘hangouts’; creating a space for a social music experience.
‘Stories’; creating sharable content around our musical memories.
These ideas were developed and evaluated in this table; highlighting exciting possibilities for features but also measuring them against the user pain points and goals as well as Spotify’s design principles.
The concept of a ‘space’ for users to socialise through music was viable, innovative and offered the most benefit for the user
Making
The design concept was developed with low fidelity concept sketches, functionality lists and task flows showing possible journeys. This was an iterative process, transforming the concept and making it real.
Examples of early stage design iteration
Deliver
Implementation Phase
UI Design
The high fidelity UI was co-designed as a team remotely using Figma.
Early UI design and collaborative moodboard
Outcome
Concept Statement
Spotify Live is for Social Trendsetters and Master Curators who want to discover new music in a social environment but are limited by distance and current functionality of music streaming services by providing a feature to create interactive social communities around music.
Existing Spotify Design Principles
Relevant, Human, Unified.
Spotify Space Design Principles
Belonging: Get together and form communities.
Present: Be part of a live experience.
Explorative: Discover new audio from all over the world.
Organic: Interactive experiences with real people
Spotify Space Concept Walkthrough video
Spotify Space exist within the existing app with its own category page. Users can create their own public or private Space or join an existing space happening anywhere in the world. Artists can also host their own Space, opening up a new channel to connect with fans.
A Space is an infinite canvas environment to experience music together. The feeling of actively listening in a Space together is facilitated by each user having a movable avatar. Hosts and admins can invite other users through Spotify or by sending out invite links.
Any user can make a time-limited song suggestion straight into the Space. Others can show support by forming a crowd or virtual mosh pit around this suggestion.
Hosts and admins can easily spot popular song suggestions and add those to the music lineup. This creates an organic and collaborative listening experience for everyone involved.
Users can react together using emojis and animated expressions and these are reflected in the Reaction Bar at the top of the interface.
The event is summarised in Spotify Space Wrapped, perfectly designed for sharing across social media.
Evaluation
Task Goals
Spotify Space satisfies both target users’ desire to discover new music as well an opportunity for the Master Curator to collaborate with others to create shared experiences. The Social Trendsetter can spend time with friends and socialise through music.
Experience Goals
Both users can experience a renewed sense of community and validation through Spotify Space. The Master Curator feels inspired and is able to express their emotional connection to music.
Emotional Pain Points
For both users, listening remotely with others is no longer a passive experience without indication of positive engagement. Users are now connecting in visual environments, reacting in the moment and discovering music together.
Conclusion
Spotify Space is an innovative concept that meets the users needs, presenting a game-changing new dynamic in experiencing music together in a distanced world.
Reflection
This was an intense but highly enjoyable project. Ideation and concept development were particularly strong.
Despite the challenges of remote working, team collaboration was highly creative, productive and enjoyable. We co-designed UI, structured storyboards and wrote scripts all over video calls.
One of my key takeaways is the importance of robustly discussing and aligning ideas throughout the process; don’t avoid those awkward conversations. Discuss and challenge ideas to develop a unified, shared vision of the concept.
Ideation and critical development over video call.