Overview
Growing as a new music artist can be difficult.
Spotify stands as one of the top online audio distribution platforms, providing artists with a convenient way to promote their music. With over 626 million monthly active users, Spotify allows artists to grow their audience with playlists regularly featuring new music like “Discover Weekly” and “Release Radar”, “Top Charts” and “Daily” mixes. Despite these efforts, I found that established artists were disproportionately being promoted, creating a big barrier to entry for small artists to be featured. In total, I found that less than 7% of artists had under 1 million monthly listeners and the median-sized artist to be featured in these mixes was 15 million monthly listeners. This barrier to entry prevents smaller artists from gaining exposure, which is crucial to their success since they already lack the resources to promote their music.
Discover
Competitive Analysis: Existing methods of discovering music
My competitive analysis revolves around how listeners use the existing methods of discovering new music. I asked three college students who regularly use Spotify their opinions of each music discovery method. By examining the user-experiences of each method, I aim to learn what I can implement and what to avoid in my final solution.
Discover Weekly & Release Radar: mixes that allow listeners to discover music based on their existing taste
Safe Recommendations
Recommendations will probably be liked because they are based on the listener’s existing taste
Less Personal Connection
Recommendations are curated by Spotify’s algorithm
Difficult to Discover New Genres
Typically only the listener’s main genre of music is featured
+ Strengths
- Weaknesses
Spotify Top 50: Top 50 most popular songs by region
Personal Connection
Curated by the Spotify community based on listens and shares
New Genre Discovery
All different kinds of music genres are featured because it is based on song popularity
Populated by Established Artists
Currently, the smallest artist to be featured has 6 million monthly listeners
Loss of Novelty
Music can easily become overplayed as these songs are playing everywhere including the radio and local establishments
+ Strengths
- Weaknesses
Daily Mixes: Curated playlists of music organized by genre
Safe Recommendations
Recommendations feature genres that the listener already listens to so the songs will probably be liked
New Genre Discovery
Different genres of music are featured per playlist
Less Personal Connection
Recommendations are curated by Spotify’s algorithm
Few Discoveries
Most songs are already saved, so only a few discoveries are made per mix
+ Strengths
- Weaknesses
Define
After conducting my research, I came up with a guiding question:
How can we empower listeners while helping small artists grow?
User Journeys
In order to get a better idea of the users’ pain points I mapped out 3 different user journeys in the perspective of a casual listener, a supportive listener and a small artist. I used these three personas because I thought they encompassed the different types of users that use Spotify. Getting a more holistic view of the user pain points will help me create a more targeted redesign in order to satisfy all three users’ needs.
James White - The Supportive Listener
As a supportive listener, I am constantly looking for novel, small artists to listen to and support by sharing and re-streaming songs. This way, I can try to get them featured in the top mixes for more people to discover.
Sebastien Bennett - The Casual Listener
As a casual listener, I enjoy finding new ways to discover new music. I sometimes get sick of old songs and songs that are overplayed because they lose their spark.
Jameson Carter - The Small Artist
As a small artist I continuously look for new ways to get my music to a broader audience. Since I’m just starting out, I find it difficult to find practical ways of gaining more exposure.
Develop
Through my user interviews I concluded that...
Users value three main aspects when it comes to discovering new music: personal connection, discovering novel genres of music, and discovering safe genres of music. In response to these values I came up with this solution:
Spotify Endorsements
Endorsement feature that allows listeners to endorse artists with less than 250,000 monthly listeners. Endorsed artists will be featured in their own mixes that enable listeners to discover novel genres of music in global and country popularities as well as safe genres of music in by-genre endorsements. This allows for personal connection since it is curated by the community and the discovery of safe and novel genres of music.
Mid Fidelity Prototype:
Deliver
Final Design:
Flow 1: Artist with over 250,000 monthly listeners does not carry the endorsement feature
Flow 2: Artist with under 250,000 monthly listeners does carry the endorsement feature
Flow 3: Global endorsements mix allows the user to discover new genres of music because it is solely based on the artist’s popularity
Flow 4: R&B endorsements mix allows the user to discover new music within the safety of the genre that they already like
Spotify
Endorsements
Overview
Growing as a new music artist can be difficult.
Spotify stands as one of the top online audio distribution platforms, providing artists with a convenient way to promote their music. With over 626 million monthly active users, Spotify allows artists to grow their audience with playlists regularly featuring new music like “Discover Weekly” and “Release Radar”, “Top Charts” and “Daily” mixes. Despite these efforts, I found that established artists were disproportionately being promoted, creating a big barrier to entry for small artists to be featured. In total, I found that less than 7% of artists had under 1 million monthly listeners and the median-sized artist to be featured in these mixes was 15 million monthly listeners. This barrier to entry prevents smaller artists from gaining exposure, which is crucial to their success since they already lack the resources to promote their music.
Discover
Competitive Analysis: Existing methods of discovering music
My competitive analysis revolves around how listeners use the existing methods of discovering new music. I asked three college students who regularly use Spotify their opinions of each music discovery method. By examining the user-experiences of each method, I aim to learn what I can implement and what to avoid in my final solution.
Define
After conducting my research, I came up with a guiding question:
How can we empower listeners while helping small artists grow?
User Journeys
In order to get a better idea of the users’ pain points I mapped out 3 different user journeys in the perspective of a casual listener, a supportive listener and a small artist. I used these three personas because I thought they encompassed the different types of users that use Spotify. Getting a more holistic view of the user pain points will help me create a more targeted redesign in order to satisfy all three users’ needs.
James White - The Supportive Listener
As a supportive listener, I am constantly looking for novel, small artists to listen to and support by sharing and re-streaming songs. This way, I can try to get them featured in the top mixes for more people to discover.
Sebastien Bennett - The Casual Listener
As a casual listener, I enjoy finding new ways to discover new music. I sometimes get sick of old songs and songs that are overplayed because they lose their spark.
Jameson Carter - The Small Artist
As a small artist I continuously look for new ways to get my music to a broader audience. Since I’m just starting out, I find it difficult to find practical ways of gaining more exposure.
Develop
Through my user interviews I concluded that...
Users value three main aspects when it comes to discovering new music: personal connection, discovering novel genres of music, and discovering safe genres of music. In response to these values I came up with this solution:
Spotify Endorsements
Endorsement feature that allows listeners to endorse artists with less than 250,000 monthly listeners. Endorsed artists will be featured in their own mixes that enable listeners to discover novel genres of music in global and country popularities as well as safe genres of music in by-genre endorsements. This allows for personal connection since it is curated by the community and the discovery of safe and novel genres of music.
Mid Fidelity Prototype:
Deliver
Final Design:
Flow 1: Artist with over 250,000 monthly listeners does not carry the endorsement feature
Flow 2: Artist with under 250,000 monthly listeners does carry the endorsement feature
Flow 3: Global endorsements mix allows the user to discover new genres of music because it is solely based on the artist’s popularity
Flow 4: R&B endorsements mix allows the user to discover new music within the safety of the genre that they already like
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