Spotify was looking for a way to improve engagement and retention in the app by expanding on their social capabilities. My initial research was focused in that direction, but based on what I learned, I was led toward a different mobile feature that would help the Users reach their goals, while making Spotify an even more seamless companion to their daily lives.
Tools Used: Market Research, Competitive Analysis, Provisional Personas, User Interviews
Before beginning to design, we must first learn what we can from existing sources of information, as well as directly from potential users of our product. This will ensure that our resources are being used to their maximum.
Before deciding where to aim my resources, I outlined our Research Goals, Methodologies, Participants, Timeline, Assumptions, and the questions we sought to answer.
My Research Goals were as follows:
- Learn about current trends in the streaming music space
- Discover what social implementations currently exist among competitors
- Understand current user demographics, habits, needs, and motivations
My Research Questions were:
- Who are the players in the current marketplace, direct/indirect?
- What are the priorities of Spotify Users?
- How does Spotify currently meet the needs of its Users?
- Are there gaps in the current satisfaction of Spotify Users?
- Are Spotify Users interested in further connecting with others?
- How do Spotify Users discover new music/artists?
Once I understood what the goals were for my research, I moved forward with collecting the primary and secondary research that would be needed to answer them.
Secondary Research: Market Research
Before generating my own data, I sought to learn more about the streaming music space, current trends, the competitors to their product, who the target client is, and what information exists on their expectations, priorities, and preferences.
Market trends and statistics:
- The current percentage of subscribers out of total MAUs (Monthly Active Users) stands at 45% – slightly lower than the 46% it has been hovering around since mid-2018
- Spotify subscribers as a percentage of MAU in Q4 2015 stood at 31%, in Q4 2016 at 39%, by Q4 2018 at 46%
- Spotify claims a 35% market share, leading Apple Music (19%) and Amazon Music (15%). Tencent Music logs an impressive 11%, despite its heavy domestic focus (where it is split over a suite of four apps), while YouTube clocks 6%
- Spotify quarterly revenue in Q1 2020 stood at €1.85 billion ($2 billion), €1.7 billion ($1.84 billion) of which came from Spotify Premium subscribers. (92% of Spotify's revenue came from Premium subscribers)
- Gross profit in the same quarter was €472 million ($511 million), with operating loss at €17 million ($18 million)
- Spotify annual revenue in 2019 at €6.7 billion ($7.3 billion), with gross profit of €1.7 billion ($1.8 billion)
- There were 286 million monthly active users of Spotify according to the company’s Q1 2020 report. Of these, 130 million were paid Spotify Premium subscribers
- This is up from 271 million monthly active Spotify users and 124 million Spotify Premium subscribers in Q4 2019. Year-on-year, it’s a 69 million increase in users (32%), and 30 million increase in subscribers (30%) – a growth rate that has been fairly consistent in recent years
Demographics + User Statistics:
- Average users listen to 41 unique artists per week
- Spotify-created playlists attract roughly three-quarters of all the followers of the top 1,000 tracks on the platform
- 55% users have registered on Spotify via their Facebook accounts
- 48% of Spotify Users are from the U.S.
- As of March 2018, Spotify’s user base was dominated by Millennials, with 29 percent of its users aged 25 to 34 and 26 percent aged between 18 and 24 years old. According to a 2018 survey, Spotify reaches almost half of 16 to 24 year olds in the United States each week
- Spotify has the most youthful User base with over half of users aged 34 or under, compared with 40% of Apple and 39% of Pandora users
- 56% of U.S. Spotify Users are male, while 56% of Apple Music Users are female
History with Social Features:
- In 2017 Spotify retired their inbox and messaging features. Stating there was low user engagement compared with the effort of maintaining the service. They instead provide directions on how to share music via a 3rd party messaging system
- Some Users stated opinions that it wasn’t unpopular because there wasn’t demand for it, but because of the implementation. The feature to receive notifications of a message were removed, so you didn’t know you had a message. It wasn’t featured clearly on the desktop app, and was a couple levels deep into menus on mobile. It wasn’t made a priority
Secondary Research: Competitive Analysis
I sought to learn from our competition in regards to what they are doing well, and where there’s opportunities to move the segment forward. I performed some high level initial research on some key direct and indirect competitors, and continued to benchmark against them throughout the design process.
Direct Competitors
Strengths
- 68+ Million paid subscribers
- Leads Spotify in paid US subscribers
- Largest library of music 60 Million songs
- Integrates best with all Apple devices/services
- Focus on exclusives with artists to feature music earlier on their platform
- Beats 1 live “radio station” channel
Weaknesses
- Not as seamless with non Apple devices/services
- No free (ad supported) version
- Not poweful enough in the marketplace to keep exclusives very long
Strengths
- 16+ Million paid subscribers
- Large library of music 40 Million songs
- Integrates with Google Home, and Android devices
Weaknesses
- Being phased out by YouTube Music
- Not as seamless with non Google devices/services
Strengths
- 20 Million paid subscribers
- Large library of music 30 Million songs
- Integrates with Google Home, and has become the default music app on Android devices
- Will have Google Play users crossing over
- YouTube has access to 2 billion users, perhaps leading to advantage in emerging markets
- Access to music videos in addition to audio
Weaknesses
- The marketing for YouTube Music/Google Play hasn’t been clear, and is cloudy with the merge
- Early days for their generated playlists, but has access to Google cloud computing platform (same that Spotify uses) to crunch user data to generate them.
Strengths
- 55 million users, but unclear how many are paid
- Large library of music 50 Million songs
- Integrates with Alexa
- Less expensive @ $7.99 than others for Prime members
- Offers “HD” version for $12.99 lossless FLAC audio (For less than Tidal or Deezer)
- Karaoke like lyric scrolling
Weaknesses
- No frills UI experience on desktop
- Not yet focused on great music algorithms
- No Podcasts
Other Competitors
Weaknesses
- Not as popular as other alternatives, so your friends likely use a different service
- Algorithims for discovering music tastes not as developed
Strengths
- 7 Million paid subscribers, 14 million overall
- Large 53 million song library (More than Spotify)
- Focus on audio quality with 28 million FLAC uncompressed audiophile quality songs
- Similarly priced and featured to Spotify
Strengths
- Large library of music 60 Million songs (More than Spotify)
- Owned primarily by artists, and is seen to be the most beneficial to artists
- Has an option for “HiFi” subscription which offers lossless audiophile quality audio
- Said to have one of the best looking interfaces
Weaknesses
- 4 million paid subscribers, but number hasn’t been made public in years
- Hifi subscription is expensive
- Don’t offer a free, ad supported version
Strengths
- 60 Million users, but used to have 83 million. Steady decrease qtr by qtr
- Large library of music 40 Million songs
- Best “radio” focused algorithm
- Only $5 for ad free “radio” style service
Weaknesses
- Has only 6 million paying subscribers
- Declining usership
Strengths
- New service, but will have access to all Sonos device customers
- Will be default service installed on Sonos
- “Radio” focused content, partnering with iHeartRadio, Tunein, and soon Radio.com. Will also have their own live station.
- Artist curated stations
Weaknesses
- Only available to Sonos owners, so will be limited in size
- New in a competitive market
Provisional Personas
Based on the studies that were referenced during the market research, I put together two provisional personas. These are the most likely users for our service, and will be used to narrow down subjects for the next step: User Interviews
Goals:
- To discover new artists and podcasts
- To conveniently play music she enjoys without too much time invested
- To be entertained on her commute
Pains:
- No time to explore for new music/podcasts
- Feels overwhelmed with options
- Not alway satisfied with the offered playlists she finds
Goals:
- To discover new music early
- To connect with other enthusiasts and their favorite artists
- To have recognition for their curated playlists
- Listen with hi fidelity quality
Pains:
- Difficult to find tastemakers to follow
- Not easy to connect with enthusiasts he’s not already connected with on another social platform
- Wants the same satisfaction and dialogue on his latest playlist that he gets when he receives “likes” or comments on Instagram
Primary Research: Heuristic Evaluation
In order to greater understand Spotify's current interface, I completed a heuristic evaluation. I spent time going over the interface to see where issues might exist, and where Spotify either adhered or strayed from norms/best practices.
Overall, I had a few main impressions:
- Most icons are conventional in nature, and are consistent throughout, but there are some that take a bit of time to learn. I couldn’t always anticipate what would be found behind a submenu
- The remaining social features aren’t prominent, are hidden in submenus, and the only clear benefits to using them are accessed only on the desktop app. I see no benefits to connecting with friends if only using mobile
- The Beta Group Session is promising, and makes some use of the Spotify Codes feature. I was disappointed it doesn’t seem to be something that can be used remotely with friends given the current pandemic situation
The evaluation in its entirety may be downloaded below:
DOWNLOAD PNGPrimary Research: User Interviews
It's important to learn directly from users of our product to understand their perspectives, pain points, and propensities in order to make better design decisions for their needs. I recruited a group of current Spotify users and asked a series of open ended questions to better understand how they are currently using Spotify, how/if they share music currently, their history with other streaming music platforms, and how Spotify could better suit their needs while providing Spotify with the greater engagement and loyalty they seek.
The statistics for the test participants are as follows:
-5 interviews were conducted
-3 male and 2 female
-Ages ranged between 29-47
-3 married, 2 single
-3 self employed
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