Spotify Mobile App Video Integration
The Application: Spotify
Since its inception, Spotify has marketed themselves as the streaming service for music fans. With over 30% of the music streaming subscription market, Spotify continues to establish itself as a leader in music consumption and discovery.
As a monthly active user of Spotify, of which there are 345 million others, I am intimately familiar with the application’s established customer experiences and designs. I’ve always been a fan of their interface’s aesthetic guidelines, and as a music consumer, have appreciated their commitment to music discovery. Within the past few years, Spotify has ventured into more than just competing as a music streaming service, but has also introduced podcasts and other non-traditional audio offerings to its subscribers.
The Problem: Video
As an avid music lover and daily user of technology to consume it, there are a number of other options I utilize to not only hear the artists I enjoy, but also watch them. Many users, not unlike myself, see the need for artist-produced video content to watch music videos and other live performances as means of consuming a band’s music.
Currently, the only motion graphics supported on Spotify is the Canvas feature, which allows artists to upload an “8-second long looping visual,”rather than the customary album artwork that is normally displayed within the audio player. If a user wishes to view any of an artist’s music videos, filmed studio performances, or live footage, their options are limited to Youtube, including their recent premium service launch of YouTube Music, Vevo, Relix, and a number of other video hosting sites.
With every artist or band that streams content on Spotify’s application, each creator has their own “Artist” page that displays all of their streamable discography, as well as other discovery tools such as playlists featuring their music, other Artist pages of similar acts, and Artist info pages containing biographies, streaming statistics, and links to social media profiles.
My solution to these user pain points is to introduce a Video section within the Artist page of Spotify’s mobile application. The section would fit directly in with the rest of the Home Page’s discovery-dominant interface, as well as nested within the actual Artist Page.
The Proposition: Customer Journey Map
As an avid music fan and long-time Spotify premium subscriber, developing the Customer Journey map was fairly simple as it made me question my own pain points and customer opportunities.
The larger implication of not having video content on Spotify is the result of users having to resort to outside platforms. When this happens, the customer journey on Spotify is not only interrupted, but now all of the company’s stakeholders (including designers, engineers, and even artists) are losing valuable viewers and the data that they bring with them.
The Process: Prototyping on Paper
I began my process my drawing screenshot prototypes based on what I visualized the video player looking like on within Spotify’s existing mobile app layout.
The Process: Final Digital Prototyping
I used Adobe XD to design my final digital prototype of the Spotify Video feature, accessible through both a Home Page display and Artist Page section, nested within the “Your Library” tab.
The prototype is available for viewing here.
The Conclusion: Spotify’s Future
While Spotify’s position as one of the most innovative and influential companies of the recording industry remains unwavering, I don’t think it is beyond reason to believe that they could venture into motion grpahics and music videos within the near future. One of the major takeaways from my project is being able to visualilze how applicable and appropriate this integration would be for Spotify. While there are obviously a number of legal obligations and obstructions that are involved in the licensing of music and video content, Spotify’s existing interface has already paved the way for Artists to publicize and publish their content.
In reflection, this entire process, from the initial ideation to the final prototyping phase, has been a very smooth undertaking, in my opinion. I belive one of the biggest reasons of this is because, as a daily user of Spotify, I found myself asking, not only what would I want, but also what would all my friends and fellow music community members want. As we’ve discussed user-centric design principles during the project and class as a whole, I’ve positively redeveloped my understanding of how consumer pain points are addressed and solved.