Jarreau Ortega
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Improving Spotify's
Music Suggestion Section

Overview
Research Methods
User Interviews
Observations
Affinity Diagramming
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Timeline
September 2024, (1 month)
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Role
UX Researcher
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Overview image for case study.
How did I tackle this problem?
This is the process I took to find a solution:
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Goal(s)
Understand how to improve the ease of use for the music suggestion section of Spotify, particularly for providing songs that users prefer.
Problem
With the platform being widely used, there have been multiple issues of Spotify's music suggestion not suggesting music that people enjoy.
Background
How could the music suggestion section of Spotify be better designed to make it easier for users to find songs they prefer or enjoy listening to? Spotify is a widely used digital music, podcast, and video streaming platform that can be used on smartphones, computers, and other internet-connected devices.

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Process image for case study.
Summary of outcomes
I gathered affinity notes and grouped them into themes and clusters. I found the two following points:

1. Participants have various factors that make up their expectations before using Spotify. My participants listened to rock music the most.

2. Suggestions for improvements on problems they experienced:
     
     A. Moving away from using likes to recommend songs
     B. Improving the ease of access and use of Spotify's listening history on desktop

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Empathize
Recruitment
Using online UX design and product design slack channels and in-person social networks, I focused on outreaching to people that frequently listened to music on Spotify.

Using Slack and Calendy, I scheduled times to meet with participants.
Participant Criteria
I identified my participants as having frequently listened to music on Spotify.
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Define
Qualitative Study
For my study, I formed an interview protocol with questions addressing the following areas to break down the problem:

1. Music preferences
2. Recent use of Spotify
3. Ease of use for users in the music suggestion section
4. Specific scenarios where people engaged or disengaged with the music suggestion section
5. Suggestions for improving Spotify’s music suggestion based off prior questions
Image for showing beginning of interview protocol.Image for showing end of interview protocol.
Execute
Analyzing
After gathering data, I transcribed recordings and created affinity notes of each of my interviews that included observations, interpretations, factual statements, and quotes from participants.
Conducting user interviews
Within 3 weeks, I scheduled, conducted 2 user interviews, and gathered observations and data.

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Image showing unorganized affinity notes.
Synthesizing
After creating affinty notes, I spent time to find patterns and form clusters of affinity notes. Through this, I got to identify summary notes of each cluster that would suggest insights or solutions from the collection of affinity notes.
Image showing first half affinity note clusters.
Image showing second half affinity note clusters.
Outcomes
Findings
After synthesizing my affinity notes, I found two of the following points:

1. Participants have various backgrounds, attitudes, behaviors, and music that they enjoy, that shape their expectations before using Spotify. My participants in this context listened to a lot of rock music.

2. My participants gave suggestions for improvements based on problems they experienced, which included:

     A. Moving away from using likes to recommend songs
     B. Improving the ease of access and use of Spotify’s listening history

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Conclusion
I got to understand the needs of these users and find suggestions on what would help them find music that they enjoy through their suggested improvements for Spotify’s music suggestion section.
What would I have changed?
I faced limitations in gathering more participants to cover a majority of Spotify’s users and could have spent more time and effort gathering a variety of users, but with my current findings, I have been able to find suggestions for improvements. With further research, this could expand to covering more kinds of users with additional suggestions for improvement to Spotify’s music suggestion section and helping more people find enjoyable music.

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