Spotify Social
A speculative UX project expanding social interaction within Spotify.
Project Brief
Scope and Focus
Spotify is a leader in music streaming, but social features are limited. The goal was to design a native social experience that allows users to see, react, and share what friends are listening to. The emphasis is on creating engaging, intuitive social interactions while keeping users within the Spotify ecosystem.
Background
Users want to connect over music in real-time, but existing social features are passive and difficult to discover. This project explores ways to increase engagement, motivation, and music discovery through a mobile social experience.
Project Goals
- Enable social music discovery through friends’ activity
- Encourage reactions, sharing, and in-app discussions
- Create an engaging, easy-to-navigate social feed
- Support profiles, playlists, and collaborative features
Discovery & Research
Key Findings
- Passive feeds do not encourage interaction.
- Users want quick ways to react and play friends’ music.
- Inline sharing and messaging improves engagement.
- Familiar social patterns from other apps are expected.
Doctor Insights
- • Users prefer clear, intuitive interactions
- • Visual prominence of album art increases scrolling and engagement
Project Goals
Business Goals
Synthesizing Data
Understanding the User
Alex the Connector
Loves discovering music through friends. Wants instant reactions and in-app sharing. Expects familiar social interactions like commenting and liking.
Alex needs a simple, engaging way to interact with friends’ listening activity so discovering and sharing music feels social and seamless.
- Provide a clear feed of friends’ activity
- Enable instant reactions and inline playback
- Support conversation and sharing inside the app
Ideation & Planning
- • Brainstormed concepts for feed layout, inline reactions, and messaging.
- • Developed feature matrix and product roadmap.
- • Defined user flows for feed, messages, and profiles.
User Flows & Logic
Visual Design & Prototyping
Brainstorming & Ideation
Developed feature matrix and high-fidelity prototype flows.
Moodboard
Wireframes
Developed low-fidelity wireframes with annotations. Iterated to mid- and high-fidelity prototypes testing core flows.
Iconography
The Solution
A fully integrated social music experience.
Friend Activity Feed
Scrollable, visual, interactive
Inline Reactions
Quick play, like, and comment
Messaging & Sharing
Keep conversations in-app
Testing & Reflection
Usability Testing
Conducted usability testing on feed navigation, reaction flow, and sharing. Key insights: Users engage more with prominent visuals (album art). Inline reactions and instant playback increase retention.
Reflections & Learnings
This speculative project reinforced the value of familiar social interactions, clear hierarchy, and visual engagement in mobile apps.