Spotify, is a leading global audio streaming service which provides music, podcasts, and audiobooks. It has been my primary platform for listening and sharing audio for 8 years.

In this project, I assess the Home's current state and suggest interactions that might assist in enhancing user personalization, and spotlight awesome features to the Home.

HOME SWEET HOME

A user’s Spotify Home is filled with a myriad of content. All of which takes the common “Cards” or “Carousel” UI patterns we see in most streaming services.

However, I felt there were a few things missing from the experience, and took to the internet to investigate.

LACK OF FEATURE SPOTLIGHT AND PERSONALIZATION

I conducted in person interviews with my friends & sent a short survey to a few Spotify Reddit communities for some data. I looked at community requests, and online publications about the service to discover the following throughlines about the Home experience:

• Users have no way to personalize their Home with specific Content Types or Aesthetics

• Users want direct access to Spotify’s cool features in their Home

Even though the above Features are great, these features are not front and center on the Home, nor on all devices. Providing quicker access might assist with engagement and I set out to explore ways to promote these features.

EXPLORATION 1 - “LIVE EVENTS”

Live Events are something I personally seek out regularly as did the users I surveyed. So I reduced getting to live events by a step by making it more prominent.

During my investigation, I found there was a lack of tags specifically for Live Events related to Comedy or Podcasts, so I modified the Live Events page to include those tags.

The goal with this exploration was to reduce the steps, as well as provide a date reminder when users opened the app. Perhaps rather than an icon and Date Text on the Home, there could be a way to show a more compact banner of the actual Event from the Live Events Page displaying the Artist Picture, and the Date.

EXPLORATION 2 - “EDIT HOME”

Preferences and Style

Using the Edit Button at the top right of the Home, users can modify their Home Preferences and alter their Home Style in the “Edit Home" menu.

Preferences

Audio Types - where users can include or exclude types

Focus - where users can modify the Home recommendation diversity

Popularity - where users can modify the recommendation popularity to help users find content that may need some listening support!

Release Range - Users can modify to receive recommendations which are New or old, or All!

Locations - for users who want recommendations from different or specific places around the world

Below is an example of the Audio Types Podcast & Shows and Audiobooks being excluded from a Premium Members Home, and what the Home might look like with Music as the focus. Things that might change are the tags up at the top which are Genre filter buttons, based on the users listening behavior.

Style

I love a good List, but as I’ve used Tik-Tok more, and Spotify has begun to incorporate a singular swipe quick feature into the Home, and in Search - I decided to steer in that direction.

Allowing users to choose within the Style tab, we can further reduce doom scrolling aka choice paralysis, I thought this would be a dope feature to have.

In the picture above, when in the Style Tab, users can see a preview of their Home in that selected Style. Once they are done they can quickly get back to their personalized Home.

EXPLORATION 3 - FEATURE TOOLBAR

Below is the Feature Toolbar, where we can offer the users a more direct path to access Spotify’s cool features, which are often a few clicks deep and sometimes not even searchable. If a user clicks on a Feature, such as DJ Beta, they would be taken to the DJ Beta and their session would begin.

EXPLORATION 4 - SAVE, EXPLORE AND CREATE CONTENT CARDS

I was inspired by iOS Home Widgets that were recently added to the operating system. I saw this system as a neat feature to have which could provide users with a more personalized feel, and be something the community could also utilize.

In this version of the Edit Home, user are able to:

• Remove Content Cards generated by Spotifiy

• Change Card positions

• Create a Card

• Explore other pre-existing Cards either made by Spotify or by other users

Explore Cards

If a user wants to explore Cards generated by Spotify, created by Users, or even Artists - they can find it here.

Create a Card

If users want to create a card that is more accurate to their interests, they can do so here

• Customize Visuals for Card

• Use Tag System to Filter for specific Content

Tag System

In the example below, I show the flow with the aim of generating a playlist using the Tag System:

• Select Primary Tags: Music and Video, press Next

• Secondary Tags appear. I select Genre

• Tertiary Genre Tags appear. I select Punk and Folk, then press Next

• I return back to Secondary Tags. I select Location

• Tertiary Location Tags appear. I select Asia and Europe, then select Next

• I return back to Secondary Tags, and Press Save

This Card is now made and Saved to my Home, and will generate the following Content:

• Music and Music Videos within the Punk or Folk Genres, from Asia and Europe

PROJECT POST MORTEM

I began this project two or so months ago (Late August 2023) and since then, it’s as if Spotify has been reading my mind.

• It’s since removed the Greeting from the Mobile Header, allocating more space to display more content

• On the Desktop, they just added a Feature Carousel to display individual features, like Daylist that was just launched. However good Daylist is, features do not appear on any other platform and do not always appear in the Home when opened.

• And soon they are rolling out a generative AI playlist tool, which might be a better way of going about discovering content in a way that feels unique to the listener in the way that I had intended Exploration 4 and it’s Tag System.

Widgets were a bad idea, but the Tag System is a salvageable exploration

During my research, I stumbled upon Smarter Playlists, a node-based playlist generation tool, made by Paul Lamere.

I think this Tag System to generate Card Content, might be better suited for a Playlist Generation Tool, similar to that of Paul’s, but within the Spotify App rather than an external site. You can watch this early demo from Paul which is worth a watch.

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