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Live Queue

Conceptual Interaction Design – Make a house party more interactive and fun with Spotify

CLIENT
Conceptual design done as part of General Assembly's "Passion Project: Spotify"

INITIAL PROBLEM

People like to listen to music together in a group setting, such as parties and road trips, but often need to rely on one person to be the “DJ” who also misses all the fun!

REFINED PROBLEM

Users also want a more socially interactive listening experience

GOAL & TIMING

Allow listeners to individually contribute in real-time so it would all not fall on the shoulders of one person and make it fun to use!

Timeline: 2-week sprint

Platform: Native iOS App

MY ROLE

Researcher

Data Analysis

Ideation

UI Designer

Tester

The Sprint

PLANING

We followed a modified 5-day Google Design sprint, leveraging design thinking methods to get to an MVP

DAY 1 & 2
Research

- Screener Survey
- 7 User Interviews
- 4 Usability Tests
- Affinity Mapping
- Develop User Personas
- Competitive & Comparative Analysis
- Refine Problem Statement

DAY 3
Sketch

- Lighting Demos
- Ideate
- Crazy 8s
- Sketch Low-Fidelity Wireframes

DAY 4
Decide

- Dot Vote on Ideas
- Decide on Final Screens
- Develop User Flow & Task Flow

DAY 5
Build

- Create High-Fidelity Screens
- Stitch Together Screens into a Prototype
- Create Usability Test Script

DAY 6
Test

- 6 Usability Tests
- Organize Learnings
- Iterate
- Identify Next Steps

Day 1 & 2: Research

SCREENER SURVEY

We sent out a screener survey in order to recruit users for interviews, usability testings, and collect some quantitative data

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

Identifying strengths & weaknesses of each company showed us insights of potential opportunities

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS


Compared features that encourage social interaction to see where Spotify stood

SURVEY DATA

What Did We Learn?

USER INTERVIEWS

  • Users discover their music through their friends
     

  • Users would like a “socially interactive” aspect to Spotify
     

  • Users feel like there is too much responsibility when they are “DJing” for friends
     

  • Users are more at ease at a party if they can contribute to the music

USABILITY TESTING OF EXISTING APP

  • Users put a lot of thought into their playlists and do not want others to change them
     

  • When presented with many play requests, no users would create a collaborative playlist
     

  • Users create playlists before a party

User Personas

Refined Problem Statement

People like to listen to music together in a group setting, such as parties and road trips, but often need to rely on one person to be the “DJ” and misses all the fun!

How might we allow listeners to seamlessly contribute to the queue in real-time so it would all not fall on the shoulders of one person?

Day 3 : Sketch

LIGHTNING DEMOS


During the Lightning Demos, team searched for inspiration by researching ways that other applications execute similar tasks. We found inspiration in how users select friends on Venmo, how to scan friends on Snapchat, among others apps.
 

CRAZY 8’s


The goal of sketch day was to write down as many ideas as possible. We time-boxed 30 minutes to write down as many solutions to our users as possible. We sketched them on paper, and then we rapidly iterated these screens (ideas) in a rounds of Crazy 8’s.

Day 4: Decide

USER FLOW

Since the focus is social interaction, we were solving pain points for two distinct users. One for the “owner”, person who started the Live Queue, and another one for the added “DJs”, friends in the road trip or attending the house party.

We explained and pitched our design ideas, then silent voted the final designs.

DOT VOTING FINAL DESIGN

Key Design Decisions

GOALS

DESIGN SOLUTIONS

Create multiple ways for users to join Live Queue

Create unique scan code to every Live Queue

Select "DJ" from list of social media friends

Make Spotify more socially interactive

Allow users to react to songs
Allow other users to share your Scan Code

Give owner total control of Live Queue

Extensive privacy settings

Let the fun never stop!

Recommended Songs (based on what is in the Live Queue) takes over when users stop adding songs

Day 5 & 6: Build & Test

SONG REACTIONS!

In our research, we found that users wanted a more social Spotify experience, easier ways to collaborate and discover new music, so we built our first prototype based on their needs.

I Love It!

This Rocks!

It's Lit!

What the...?!

Next Steps

  • Focus on the DJ" user flow

  • Create rules and responsibilities for Owner vs. DJ

  • Create rules for freemium and desktop users

  • Test & Iterate

  • LAUNCH — Send out benefits-oriented onboarding email to all Premium users

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