Spotify Mobile Friend Activity
Adding a key component to the Spotify mobile app
The world’s most used streaming service, Spotify has amassed 406 million users. A key component of Spotify’s desktop app is the friend activity bar that lets a user know what song their friends are listening to in the current moment. However, this feature is missing from Spotify’s mobile app, and so it lacks that vital social interaction feature that makes the service so enjoyable and engaging. The goal was to make the Spotify experience more socially interactive by: having a designated page on the Spotify mobile app for friend listening activity so that a user is able to see the listening activity of a person they follow in real time, and being able to easily follow users through Facebook friends.
Scope: UX/UI Design
User Problem
Spotify’s mobile app lacks the friend activity feature that is key to making the platform an interactive social experience.
Goal
Make the Spotify user experience more socially interactive by:
Having a designated page on the Spotify mobile app for friend listening activity so that a user is able to see the listening activity of a person they follow in real time.
Being able to easily follow users through Facebook friends.
User Research
In order to tackle this problem and better understand user interactions with Spotify, I conducted user research interviews with three Spotify listeners.
These were my key takeaways:
Spotify’s social aspect is generally well-liked already, but could be further expanded.
They love Spotify’s friend activity feature because they value being able to see what their friends are listening to—it gives them a sort of connection.
Users love opportunities to discover new music through personalization, whether that’s being able to see what other people are listening to or through curated playlists.
Users appreciate the visual design of Spotify’s interface and its customization features; it’s visually appealing and interactive which makes using Spotify fun.
“When I see what songs my friends are listening to, I get a sense of how they may be feeling at that moment, which is interesting.”
— Cjay Montalvo, User Interview #1
Concept Overview
Using these findings, I was able to visualize potential solutions to the issue. Spotify’s interface, I found, is already well-liked and easy to navigate. I gave myself the following guidelines in designing the mobile app friend activity feature:
Make it easily accessible (perhaps make it its own tab in the main navigation)
Display friend profile picture and name
Display current song playing, and what album or playlist the song is being played from
Make adding friend feature readily accessible and easy to use
Lo-Fi Prototype
I made this initial lo-fi sketch for the mobile app that closely resembled its desktop counterpart:
And then designed a more polished and complete version:
However, this design felt very standard. I knew there was opportunity to play with scale and scroll direction to make the overall experience more interactive and interesting. This led me to my final design.
In this final design, horizontal scrolling applies to friends who are currently listening, and this section appears at the top to separate from users who aren’t currently listening. Current listeners also have larger icons and the album artwork is enlarged to further emphasize them.
Hi-Fi Prototype
Selecting the “Add Friends Icon” allows for users to seamlessly follow Spotify users they are friends with on Facebook, easily adding them to their social listening network.