Spotify- a heuristic overview

This week I began with a team at Clicked.com (a wonderful new UX community, currently in beta testing) to conduct a redesign for Spotify podcasting.

During the first sprint of this project, we were asked to conduct heuristic research, as well as any other research we felt was pertinent and time-worthy as a team, including user interviews. This blog post will focus on heuristic research on the Spotify mobile phone application.

Background

Spotify is a Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded in 2006 by Daniel Ek. Spotify kicked off its venture into podcasting in early 2019, after acquiring podcast companies Gimlet Media, Anchor, and Parcast. (CNBC, 2021) However, analysts are stating that venture is failing, as measured by app downloads and Premium subscriptions.

Methodology

• A heuristic evaluation is a usability inspection with the purpose of finding issues on a website with the purpose of enhancing the user experience.

• To avoid bias, the heuristic evaluation is accomplished by following a specific set of principles.

• Jakob Nielsen's Heuristics were used as the set of principles for judging.

Abstract

• Spotify is a music and podcasting platform that had over 130 million Premium subscribers globally and 286 million total users in 2020. Spotify's main demographic user is between 18 and 34 years of age.

• The team evaluated Spotify strictly on the podcasting capabilities, in order to see if the website had any usability issues. Also, information was compiled from other Spotify users from the Reddit Spotify channel and from app store reviews.

• Those issues were documented and recommendations will be considered for the redesign.

Heuristic Analysis Goal #1: Clarity (based on both music and podcast since both share the same page)

• Can people tell within 5 seconds of landing on your page what you provide and the value? Although nowhere on the home page does it necessarily say "music", you can generally tell each card represents a music genre of some sort, or a podcast, depending on what section of the page you are on. The home page is designed to give you music that the app feels you will enjoy- basing recommendations largely on the music you have previously listened to. It also provides recommendations on what is popular as well.

• Is it clear what page they are on and what actions they can perform on the page? A user can tell what page they are on based on the highlighted nav tab at the bottom (i.e. home, search, your library, and premium). If a user is familiar with the general UI of apps, they probably understand by tapping on a card will take them to that choice of music.

• Does the visual hierarchy of the page (both copy and images) help the user? Can people clearly identify what their next step in the process is?  This is where it seems that Spotify may have issues. Podcasts and music are separated only by row- but podcasts and music choices are mixed. If one is specifically looking for their podcasts, especially if not used to the homepage setup, podcasts can blend in with the music suggestions. Also, row titles and, often the card titles, seem arbitrary. There is no clear hierarchy. Your playlists and recommended music can get lost within other suggested/popular music. Also, there are no suggested podcasts that are based on the podcasts you have listened to in the past. Once a card is clicked on, the next step is obvious using a traditional play button (which then becomes a traditional pause button once triggered).

Heuristic Analysis Goal #2: Relevancy

Bear with me as I will have to answer these questions from both a music evaluation and a podcast evaluation, as both have completely different answers but both share the same home page.

• Does the landing page match the site, ad, or messaging people came from in terms of design and language? Spotify is all about having a youthful appearance, with bright colors, illustrations, and movement. This is reflected in their titles and microcopy: "Hello Summer", "Happy", "Throwback", "Sing-Along"

• Is the right information (the information they need to make a decision) provided on the page without needing to navigate to another page? Depends. A lot of the microcopy reads as follows: "Get ready to sing your hearts out with these familiar...", "Crowdpleasing classics for an easy, carefree day." etc. (Example cards under the "Hello Summer" category.) Since you don't know exactly what kind of music will be played under that card, you would have to click it and check the list of songs on that playlist to see if it matches your mood. Others, such as your suggested Daily Mix, will list the band/performer names in the microcopy (Queen, The Beetles, Steppenwolf and more) making it much easier to decide if that's what you're in the mood for.

• Does your copy match the target audience's language? Does it match the words in the user's head when they think of your product or their problem? Again, they have designed the copy to be youthful but I think a straightforward listing of bands will be more useful.

• Do the images you use on the page reflect both the value and relevancy to the solution they're searching for? Do they serve as clarification and visual aids to drive your point home? As long as the pictures are showing an example of the band being played or an album cover- yes. The problem for the user is they are wanting music to listen to: to have fun with, to help them stay focused with, to help them sleep... Others often represent their demographic user. Young, smiling adults, often females, that the demographic user can relate to.

Podcasting viewpoint:

• The landing page shows at the top my selections of podcasts that I listen to. Below that, there is only "show" to indicate it's a podcast, and then the name of the artist. There is no description of the podcast on the home page. To see a description of the podcast (written by the owner of the podcast not copywriters at Spotify) one needs to click on the podcast card.

• Again, there isn't much information for the podcasts themselves. You would have to navigate to the podcast page (by tapping on the card) to learn more information about the show, through the description. You can then select which episode you would like to listen to with a small play button next to each show.

Again, the copy is written by the podcast owner (or manager) and I don't believe the copywriters at Spotify have much to do with it. Does it match the target audience's language? I would say more than likely since the owner/manager would be an expert in that field, so their listeners would probably also speak like them.

• Images tend to be limited to the ones that have been preloaded by the podcast owner/manager. They tend to be the podcast brand logo.

Heuristic Analysis Goal #3: Remove Friction

User comments on Reddit identified several areas of friction:

• They need to clear or delete their listening queue when switching between podcasts and music (instead of being able to have a cue for each).

• Not being notified of new content from their subscribed podcasts.

• Can't auto-download new episodes of their subscribed podcasts.

• Downloaded podcasts won't play offline.

• Can't download audio-only versions of podcasts (there is a toggle switch in settings/data saver to choose audio-only. Perhaps the user is looking for the option within the podcast card itself).

Heuristic Analysis Goal #4: Remove Distractions

• Asking people to share your page on social media? No.

• Offering additional products before one has been chosen? The only additional product offered is the Premium version.

• Having too many options to choose from (analysis paralysis)? For podcasts- no. In fact, too few. Only subscribed podcasts are offered with no recommendations. For music? YES! Offered suggestions could be cut in half and be more of an appropriate amount to chose from.

• Unrelated animations, images, or banners that distract people? No.

• Irrelevant information on the page?  Irrelevant as in suggestions I'm not interested in... yes.

• Irrelevant pop-ups? Not for podcasts. A user can listen to podcasts without ads. For music, I only refer to the irrelevant pop-ups as it applies to ads, which the complaint often is that there are too many too often (and also too long).

Prioritizing the Analysis

Grading the needs on a scale from 1 (not serious, not needing to be fixed immediately) to 4 (need to be fixed asap)

• Finding your subscribed podcasts quickly and easily - 2 (at the moment subscribed podcasts are at the top of the user feed)

• Offering suggestive podcasts based on your listening (similar to music) - 3

• Not being notified of new episodes of subscribed podcasts- 4

• Needing to delete queues to switch between music and podcasts - 3

• Can't choose to download audio-only- 1

• Downloaded podcasts can't play offline - 1 (this is a developer issue, not a design flaw.)

Possible Solutions

I believe designing either a separate app for podcasts than music or designing tabs to differentiate between podcasts and music would solve most of the problems. Podcasts can be found quickly, suggestions could be made based on listening, and the need to delete their listening queue could be avoided.

Perhaps the highest priority and the easiest to implement is the new episode notification. This is a necessity for any podcast player that is simply missing from Spotify. The introduction of a toggle on the podcast page would indicate that notification is requested whenever a new episode is uploaded.