Project 1

MY ROLES

UX Research, UI Design,
Interaction Design.

PROJECT SUPERVISOR

Spotify Team.

THE CHALLENGE

Spotify wants to understand what the most popular African music genres & sub genres are within Nigeria. Identify and define these music genres

THE SOLUTION

A Spotify distribution template and a gamified experience that allows artists and listeners respectively to teach the algorithm African and Sub-saharan African music genres

TARGET AUDIENCE AND RESEARCH OVERVIEW

Target Audience: African music listeners on Spotify.
10 moderated user interviews
12 usability tests
4 Critic session (1 with Spotify team).

IMPACT

Increase in the number African music listeners on Spotify
Increased awareness of the various music genres in Africa and sub-saharan Africa

Process Overview

I and my team presented a capstone project to Spotify team aimed at defining the most popular African and sub-saharan African music genres within Nigeria. We moderated a number of user interviews and usability testing which informed our solution.

The proposed solution was for:

native mobile apps only and
could be for either freemium or premium members.

Assumption

"Spotify has limited knowledge of the most popular African and sub-saharan African music genres within Nigeria."

Validating My Assumption

I started off this project with the assumption that Spotify has limited knowledge of the kinds of African and sub-saharan African music genres that are popular within Nigeria and my first point of call was to test to see if my assumption is valid.

I discovered that only four out of twelve genres on Everynoise.com (Spotify's database of music) are represented on the mobile app. This showed that while Spotify has a robust database of the popular African music genres available in Nigeria, for some reason, they chose to feature only four of them on their app.

"Spotify knows more African genres than is represented in the mobile app but for some reason only four of those genres are represented in the app".

Secondary research call out

Pattern Matching

To have a sense of people's listening habits and the African music genres they know, I carried out a total of 22 user interviews split into identifying patterns and testing my solutions for usability issues.
The central theme of my research findings was that users don't care much about African music genres but they feel it's a good idea to be able to find songs based on genres. This made me understand that we could improve their experience by attending to this challenge.

User Themes

Key Insights

Mood and acitivity dictates the songs they listen to.
They often discover songs using the search box.
They feel that African genres on Spotify are few and randomly grouped.
Most users believe that genre is an important way to discover African music.
Users wants to find African songs that are representative of the kinds that they love.

Goals

Teach Spotify how to categorize songs into their respective genres.
Help users find the African music they love.
Design an experience that does not intrude into their listening pattern.

Opportunity

“How might we teach Spotify algorithm the kinds of African music genres that users are familiar with and love?”.

Exploration & Testing

I came up with solutions that were based on identifying and understanding two crucial things:

The best opportunity (entry point) to teach Spotify algorithm the various African music genres and
The most suitable users to do so.

This led me to three concepts. The first concept places the responsibility of sorting songs on artists, record labels or music distribution company. The other two options are the responsibility of music listeners in a way that it does not disturb their listening experience.

#Concept 01 - A Distributor Template

Assumes artists/record labels are the best to teach Spotify about their songs.
Allows professionals to define their songs and it's genres.
Songs are automatically classified based on their submissions on Spotify.

#Concept 02 - Banner Prompt

Works in conjunction with #Concept 01
Users are taken through a dedicated gamified flow of 5 songs.
Each flow allows users to sort 5 African songs they are familiar with.
They can opt out of the flow whenever they feel like.
There are no wrong or right answers.
The options merely reflect what was originally identified by the artists.

#Concept 03 - Liked Songs

Works in conjunction with #Concept 01
Users sort only songs that they like.
It does not interrupt the track they are currently listening to.
They are rewarded with better song recommendations.

Becca, Aspiring UX Developer

"I would prefer not to to click more than three times to select a genre"

Umar, Front End Developer

"I would only sort out songs as long as it does not interrupt my listening experience".

Phelsia, Student Kenyatta University

"The gamified version is more compelling because of its autonomy. It is a conscious decision to help Spotify classify African songs".

Usability Testing

Since my solutions were based on assumptions, I wanted to see how effectively they could improve users experience.
To achieve this, I presented my three concepts to twelve users who were to complete some tasks and then, they were asked which flow they liked most. Some of their feedbacks are shown here.

Refining The Design -
Adding Multiple Entry Points

Most participants claimed they found the homepage banner in #concept-02 distracting and they immediately closed it going straight ahead with to stream the music they came for.
With this observation in mind, I decided to include another entry point that fits perfectly into their context (i.e. whenever they want to listen to African songs) and isn't intruding their streaming experience.

Gamifying The Experience

Participants were excited about this initiative, they felt it would improve their experience. However, I observed a major bottleneck, they often keep their phone in their pocket whenever they are streaming songs. This meant I had to consider this context when proposing a solution.

My solution was to create an autonomous experience for users outside their regular streaming experience. This experience was gamified to fully engage participants while also teaching the algorithm. Once completed, they can resume their regular streaming experience.

User Rewards & Playlist Sharing

To complete this experience and to make it satisfying, users are rewarded at the end of their tasks with a playlist of African songs. They can also share their playlist with friends on various social media channels allowing them to promote the songs and also encourage others to partake in the experience.

Other Explorations

An interesting concept I also tried out but later discarded was to make the teaching occur indirectly whenever users like a song. The major benefits of this approach is that it does not interrupt user's streaming experience and they are only sorting out genres of songs that they know.
The draw backs of this approach however are:

It requires users to be actively engaged with the app, which is not always the case.
When people are streaming songs, they often interact with the app in it's idle state.
#concept 02 proved that most people don't like pop ups and banners which means that they would probably ignore it.

Reflections & Next Steps

My creative skill was immensely tested while working on this project. Spotify is an awesomely designed product with great user experience so identifying this value gap and coming up with a solution was both challenging and exciting. There were several things I to take into consideration to come up with a feasible solution, there are:

The most appropriate persona to teach Spotify algorithm the popular African and sub-saharan African genres known in Nigeria
The best opportunity to present the task to my chosen persona.

Some of the lessons I learned from this project are:

Context is key when asking users to perform a task.
Users want to be rewarded for tasks that they perform.
Most people use Spotify when pre-occupied with other things/tasks.
They will complete their tasks as long as what they were doing before isn't interrupted.

Next Steps

My next steps would be to test the design and take note of success or failure rates established by the project manager for each identified success metrics.

Building an inclusive UX;helping Spotify identify African music Genres.

Process Overview

Assumption

Validating My Assumption

Pattern Matching

Key Insights

Goals

Opportunity

Exploration & Testing

Usability Testing

Refining The Design -
Adding Multiple Entry Points

Gamifying The Experience

User Rewards & Playlist Sharing

Other Explorations

Reflections & Next Steps

Next Steps

Similar Projects

Building an inclusive UX;helping Spotify identify African music Genres.

Process Overview

Assumption

Validating My Assumption

Pattern Matching

Key Insights

Goals

Opportunity

Exploration & Testing

Usability Testing

Refining The Design - Adding Multiple Entry Points

Gamifying The Experience

User Rewards & Playlist Sharing

Other Explorations

Reflections & Next Steps

Next Steps

Similar Projects

Refining The Design -
Adding Multiple Entry Points