As somebody who has been using Spotify daily for years, one issue that I’ve constantly run into is that I find it hard to find new music to listen to, especially when I am hunting for songs with a similar sound or vibe to one that I already enjoy. Several issues exist with the current features available for finding new music:

• Discover Weekly is too infrequent and inconsistent.

  • Spotify generated playlists like Discover Weekly help users find new deep cuts and songs they previously might never have uncovered, but the playlist only refreshes once a week, and users aren’t given the option to curate the suggestions they’re given. The songs will be chosen based on what the Spotify algorithm believes the user will like, which while useful for statistically suggesting songs that will be enjoyed by users, also produces a playlist with inconsistent genres and vibes, and doesn’t produce a playlist with a cohesive listening experience. 

• Custom mixes and radios don’t show enough new songs.

  • Spotify provides users with personally generated mixes based on genre, as well as gives the option for users to view “radios” based on specific artists or songs – playlists generated to sound similar to the subject of the radio. While these playlists do provide users with cohesive listening experiences, meshing songs with similar genre and sound, they often pull songs that users have already established that they like and have streamed multiple times. When searching for new music, these playlists are lacking due to the lack of new songs that Spotify places within them.

• It’s incredibly difficult to find user-created playlists.

  • Currently there exists no feature within Spotify to easily discover playlists created by other users. While you can search for keywords, should a user want to find a playlist curated to provoke a specific feeling, it’s impossible to do so with ease.

With these issues in mind, I sought to create a solution that fit seamlessly into the current visual interface of Spotify, and aligned with the visual direction of the app.

My solution was to provide users with the ability to open a page of playlists containing a selected song. Many times in the past I have had songs where I desperately wanted to find other songs with a similar sound, yet as there was no feature within Spotify to easily allow me to discover them, I would instead seek out resources outside of the app, such as social media, for help. This new Playlist Discovery feature serves to help to rectify this!

This page is split into two sections: one for Spotify curated playlists, and one for public playlists created by other users. The purpose of this divide is to ensure that users who want a well curated listening experience are able to ensure that they are able to find that within the playlists created by Spotify’s editors. This also allows the user created playlists to receive their own spotlight. While some minimal social features do exist within the app, if users are able to better discover each other’s playlists, it would drive further social interaction, allowing users to locate others who have similar tastes to them.

Working on this project was a wonderfully informative experience. By first working to recreate the preexisting Spotify UI, I was able to study and come to better understand the thought process and the design principles at work. Due to the short nature of the project, I wasn’t able to go as in depth into my added features as I would have liked. I hope to revisit this project in the future, and to continue to expand on my additions, such as by including a system allowing users to add custom mood tags to their playlists, and making it even easier for users to share their work with the community.