M2 Master A Better Spotify

Even though Spotify is the most well-known streaming platform that exists in the world and has billions in assets and millions of users, there is still some usability optimization that can be done. In many blogs and internet sources, heavy users complain about usability related issues when it comes to Spotify. Finding comments mentioning unintuitive user flows, inconsitencies across pages and features not located where the user would expect them, was not uncommon. In fact, there most certainly is the possibility to improve Spotify – our aim was to analyze the existing UX issues, develop new approaches and, of course, implement them in an adequate way.

The idea under which ‘Better Spotify’ was born was trying to get feedback from heavy users themselves and implement them in a web application that has the same features and feel of Spotify but is an improved and overall better version (hence the name).

To achieve the goals in a short period of time, the project team of seven students was divided into three operational areas:

• The first team was responsible for UX and research.
• The second team started with the development and setup for the project implementation and continued as the programmers.
• The third team was already working on the design and interface realizations that would be considered for the implementation of the project.

Because the Scrum method was used and we were working agile, each team was needed for the entire development period of four months. Through the iterative process, new ideas and improvements had to be implemented again and again.