During my internship at Jam3, we were given a brief to create an audiovisual experience that gets listeners to soundtrack and share their lives through Spotify. This project was done remotely during the pandemic by 3 design interns and 3 creative developers. The process was supervised by mentors at Jam3.
Role

UX Lead/ UI Motion Designer

Client

Jam3 x Spotify

Platform

Web

Timeline

4 months

SPOTIFY ROOMS

A 3D Virtual event where users can attend or host an audiovisual experience in real-time.

What problems were we trying to solve?

According to the brief, we needed to design an experience that allowed users to soundtrack their lives. From our initial web research, we discovered that Spotify is mostly made up of verified recording artists and listeners like you and me. However, we discovered there was a major problem of music curators such as Dj's, Vj's and audio-influencers not equitably represented on streaming platforms in contrast to recording artists. In order to validate this problem, we interviewed to 20 DJs, 5 VJs, 10 audio influencers, and 20 regular Spotify users across the USA, Toronto, South Africa, and Japan. These were the initial insights:
View interview questions
Music curators have a 17% Discovery rate
Under-representation of Music Curators

Our survey responses showed that music curators (such as DJs, VJs, etc.) had much lower streaming numbers than recording artists, and it also took them at least five times longer to get discovered.

90% no option to express audio-identity and connect with others
Lack of an audio-community culture

There are over 517.69 million Spotify users in the world and the platform is available in 178 countries, yet, from our surveys, we realized there is no community culture within the application

32% understand how to train and optimize the algorithm
Variety of music discovery is limited

Even though they are a lot of discovery features on Spotify such as Discover weekly and Release Radar, users express that Spotify's recommended music is too similar to their current listenings, which limits them from discovering new music/music curators

WHO ARE WE DESIGNING FOR?

Music Curators (Host)

DJ's VJ's Audio-trendsetters

Spotify Users (Listeners)

People who regularly use Spotify as their audio streaming platform.

Key Metrics

Once we validated the problems, we stated our KPIs in order to determine what would make the experience impactful and successful.

Create an immersive virtual event space

Create an audio-visual experience that is immersive and interactive for the host and attendees.

Foster a more inclusive audio community

Design an experience that builds an inclusive global audio community as well as highlight underrepresented voices.

Redefine music discovery

Expand the variety of music discovery.

Share personality and experiences through music

Give users a way to create and build an audio-identity within the platform. Give users a way to share and express that identity via shareable playlists.

UX Approach

The overall experience

Our first step was to design the high level experience of Spotify Rooms

Overall experience diagram

Attendee Experience

  1. 01

    Before the event
    1. The host shares a link to the event with an invitation code on social media.
    2. Attendees can also discover events directly by browsing upcoming events on the Spotify landing page.

  2. 02

    During the event

    Join as an avatar, send reactions, discover new music and share the experience with others.

  3. 03

    After the event

    Receive a playlist souvenir, options to share the playlist with friends on social media, and recommendations for more events to attend.

Experience Map

Overall Attendee Experience
Overall attendee experience

Lo-fi Sketches

We made quick sketches on Figma as well as began experimenting with UI animations using After Effects.

Before the event

Landing Page

Landing Page

Event Access

Event Access

Waiting Room

Waiting Room

Avatar/user interactions during the event

Avatar/user interactions during the event

Avatar/user interactions during the event

After the event

Party Ends

Party Ends

Playlist Souvenirs

Playlist Souvenirs

Recommended Events

Recommended Events

The 3D experience

After designing the overall experience, we had to create the experience of the “virtual party rooms.”

3D UX APPROACH

  1. Determine Room Features

    01

    Determine Room Features
    1. We listed out and brainstormed all the potential features in the room.
    2. After prioritizing, we sketched and determined the visual placement of the features in the virtual room.
  2. During the event

    02

    During the event

    We gathered inspiration and refined mood boards from similar gaming and immersive experiences.

  3. Building the room in Blender

    03

    Building the room in Blender
    1. Low-poly modelling
    2. Lighting + Texturing
    3. Pixel-pushing with developers

How might we create a Spotify experience that is easily shareable and builds community?

The Solution

spotify rooms gif
Fostering a more inclusive audio community

Fostering a more inclusive audio community

Underrepresented voices such as DJs, VJs, and audio influencers now have an exclusive platform on Spotify to promote and connect their work with the global audio community.Spotify users can also discover and engage with others which builds community.

Sharing music and personality

Sharing music and personality

Playlist souvenirs allows everyone to soundtrack their lives and express their personality to their friends, family, fans e.t.c

Redefining music discovery

Redefining music discovery

Users have more variety in music discovery via our recommended events which are based on upcoming events in the calendar and not solely based on similar tastes

What were the outcomes of designing this experience?

Once we completed our MVP, we had the opportunity to pitch our idea to Spotify as Jam3 interns. We also conducted a usability test with 50 audio-influencers and trendsetters via zoom calls where users interacted with the live website. Participants were based in Toronto, California, UK, India, Japan and Nigeria. These were the following outcomes:
70% said it's a great experience to make “Music friends”
Building the audio global community

Users with similar music/sound taste were able to discover and connect with each other from this experience.

95% said Recommended feature expanded their music horizons
Adding variety in music discovery

Users very passionate about expanding their music taste were very delighted by our different approach to discovering new music.

Needs a low data option
Experience uses High data consumption

Users in West-Africa and India found this experience frustrating because they are mostly on mobile instead of desktop and data is not as fast or accessible. Our feedback was to make a low data mobile version

2.0 Aspirations

If we had more time or we ever decided to continue this product, we would really like to add the following features to the experience:

Lyrics river visualizer

Lyrics river visualizer

Interactive sculptures

Interactive sculptures

Sticker feature

Sticker feature

THANK YOU

spotify rooms team
2023. Human Designed ♥