One of the many things I love doing is sharing songs I like with my friends. My go-to app for music is Spotify and usually I’d share a link. There are times though I want to share a particular part of a song and most times, I just do a screen recording and share. Then I imagined what it would be like sharing these parts of songs directly from Spotify. This is how I came up with the idea of Spotify Snippets.
My Present Process
This is my usual process for sharing song snippets from Spotify:
I go to the first part of the song and pause.
I go to the screen recorder and tap record.
I press play and let the song snippet play until it gets to the last part of the song I want to share (Ideally this is a maximum of 30 secs)
I stop recording and go to my Photos.
I go to the recorded video and trim to remove the unnecessary parts e.g. the parts that show me switching apps.
I save and share with friends on messaging platforms.
My Idea
I made some sketches to bring the idea out and figure out the best way to design the idea.
The main thing is having a trigger point for this action and I think an icon close to the song’s timeline is an ideal place to start. I chose a scissor icon to signify the action. So if a user taps the icon, the following happens:
The song pauses at the timestamp which will be the start point of the snippet.
A visual presentation of the work area from trimming the time stamp pops up
By default, the trimming area will select the next 30 secs of the song from the time it was paused. In cases where the rest of the song is less than 30 secs, it selects all.
Users can move the trimming area along the song’s timeline as they wish and adjust the trimming area.
Users can also playback the Snippet to listen to it and confirm or adjust to their taste.
Users can complete their action by saving their Snippets.
When they tap “Done”, options are presented for them to download as video which will save in their media folder, or share on their different social media platforms.
A visual asset will be created to show what the video will look like when they share it.
Sharing on their socials will automatically trigger the “Share Video” function the platform supports. Ideally WhatsApp, Messages, X, Snapchat, TikTok or Instagram will be the platforms users will like to share their Snippets.
My Prototype
Here is a Figma prototype I made to visualize the process of creating Snippets.
This concept is not only visually appealing but will also possibly direct people to come listen to the full song on Spotify.
