Web App • Exploring social features for Spotify

Music has been an essential part of my life, especially as fuel to develop good and long-lasting friendships. I’ve been listening to my favorite tunes on Spotify for almost a decade, and it’s now the most popular music streaming platform among my friends. Also, Spotify let me know what my peers are listening to, in real-time. That’s pretty cool. In fact, that one little social feature is the reason I’m so resistant to trying any competitor.

I believe music connects people in its own special way, and I’d love to keep up with my friends’ listening habits beyond that, and of course, also be able to share mine. As a Product Designer, exploring new social features I’d like to see in a very familiar app is a great exercise, particularly on the challenge to work with an established design system.

Good way to find out what the people you follow have been listening to. Plus, digital influencers are dragging millions of followers all over the place, but breaking into a music streaming platform to share their musical tastes is still an under-explored territory.

Displaying your friends avatars next to monthly listeners under the artist’s name would be a good way to find out how popular an artist is among those you follow. Clicking it would open a popup with stats on how many plays each friends had on the artist.

Currently, you only get new music recommendations through the platform’s algorithm. It would be nice to have a human touch to it, allowing friends to recommend songs to one another and storing these recommendations in one place.

Good way to know someone by their music taste and find out how much you have in common.