Spotify is the #1 Global music streaming platform for a variety of reasons--one of the most notable reasons being its seemingly infinite library of personally curated playlists. Whether you need a playlist to motivate you out of bed in the morning, get you through a messy breakup, or blast at full volume while driving over the Golden Gate bridge with your friends, Spotify’s got you.

Where Spotify falls short is in album inclusion. When users want to add songs to a playlist and shuffle play, it’s seamless; however, if a user wants to shuffle albums, it’s not so simple. They run into the issue of having every song from each selected album pooled together, resulting in a messy playback of intermixed tracks from all different albums.

Spotify Collections is a reimagined delivery of the analog experience that comes with owning a record collection (but without all the dust bunnies). Users are free to create collections of all kinds of albums, and shuffle them respectively.

Research Objectives

Determine users listening habits...how do you come to finding your favorite album?

What is the frequency in which people are listening to music in terms of full albums as opposed to radios, playlists, etc.

Find out what music listeners’ current go-to method(s) of listening to full albums is/are

Research Process

  • Interviews were conducted with 25 music listeners in order to target our research objectives

  • Sample Selection Research was used to understand the analytics of artist exposure with singles vs. albums

  • A comparative and competitive analysis was conducted to get an understanding of which music streaming services, if any, offer album shuffling feature(s)

PART I. INTERVIEWS

PART I. INTERVIEWS

We collected data from 25 music listeners of all ages…

…and this is what we learned

PART II. SAMPLE SELECTION

PART II. SAMPLE SELECTION

We used Spotify analytics to collect data for 10 popular artists in 2020, and found that on average, an artist’s single gets played 75.66% more than any other song on their corresponding album.

PART III. COMPARATIVE & COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

PART III. COMPARATIVE & COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

TIDAL is a global music streaming platform bringing fans closer to artists through unique experiences and the highest sound quality.

TIDAL

Apple Music is a revolutionary streaming service and app that puts the entire Apple Music catalog at your fingertips across your favorite devices. You can stream any song, album or playlist you choose — or better yet, let Apple Music do the work for you.

Apple Music

YouTube Music provides a tailored interface for the service, oriented towards music streaming, allowing users to browse through songs and music videos on YouTube based on genres, playlists, and recommendations.

YouTube Music

USER PERSONA: SIDNEY BROOKS

USER PERSONA: AMISHA DAVIS

SPOTIFY COLLECTIONS

SPOTIFY COLLECTIONS

My Collections is where all your favorite records will now live. When shuffling through them, you’ll see full albums in your queue rather than individual songs.

Spotify users now have the option to Preview Play any album they want. Not only will this help users discover new music, but it will also increase recognition of and accessibility to artists’ music that has historically been buried beneath their singles.