Spotify Social Features Exploration
Client
N/A
Deliverables
Visual Design, Prototypes, Product Design
Role
Product Designer
This project is experimental and has no official relation to Spotify.
Why social features on a music streaming app?
Music has been an essential part of my life, especially as fuel to develop good and long-lasting friendships. I’ve been listening to my favorite tunes on Spotify for almost a decade, and it’s now the most popular music streaming platform among my friends. Also, Spotify lets me know what my peers are listening to in real-time. That’s pretty cool. That one little social feature is the reason I’m so resistant to trying any competitor.
I believe music connects people in its special way, and I’d love to keep up with my friends’ listening habits, and of course, also be able to share mine.
As a Product Designer, exploring new social features I’d like to see in a very familiar app is a great exercise, particularly on the challenge of working with an established design system.
Exploring new social features
In order to have full flexibility to play around with Spotify’s UI to build these concepts, I designed and componentize from scratch every element from screens I’d be using, doing my best to emulate their UI and Design System.
Weekly top songs playlist from who you follow
Good way to find out what the people you follow have been listening to. Plus, digital influencers are dragging millions of followers all over the place, but breaking into a music streaming platform to share their musical tastes is still an underexplored territory.
See which friends have been listening to an artist
Displaying your friends avatars next to monthly listeners under the artist’s name would be a good way to find out how popular an artist is among those you follow. Clicking it would open a popup with stats on how many plays each friends had on the artist.
Recommend a song to a friend
You only get new music recommendations through the platform’s algorithm. It would be nice to have a human touch to it, allowing friends to recommend songs to one another and storing these recommendations in one place.
Use the action menu to recommend a song to a friend.
Select one or more friends to recommend the song.
Over your friend’s side, the song will be added to a new “Recommended by friends” playlist.
Enhanced profile with listening activity and music taste compatibility
Good way to know someone by their music taste and find out how much you have in common.
