Spotify Content Discovery Hub
Streamlining Spotify's fragmented music discovery features into a seamless, intuitive experience
Role
Product Designer
Tools
Figma
Timeline
Fall 2024
Skills
UX Research
UI Design
Usability Testing
Team
Anna Katherine Zhao (Product Designer)
Joseph Lee (UX Researcher)
Summary
Spotify offers dozens of tools to help users discover new music—from AI DJs to mood playlists—but these features are scattered, unclear, and hard to find. Our team set out to design a centralized discovery experience that improves usability and makes music exploration more enjoyable.
Through a combination of heuristic evaluation and surveys, we uncovered pain points and validated a new concept: the Content Discovery Hub.
The result? A 45% reduction in time spent finding discovery tools, a 36% increase in user satisfaction with the discovery experience, and overall stronger engagement with AI-powered features.
Overview
Problem
Spotify’s discovery features are powerful but scattered. Between Smart Shuffle, AI DJ, daylists, and personalized mixes, users often don’t know where to go or what each feature does. The home page is dynamic but cluttered, and discovery becomes an inefficient, frustrating experience.
How might we reduce friction in Spotify’s content discovery experience by making existing tools more visible, understandable, and engaging?
Goals
Identify UX pain points in Spotify’s music discovery experience
Understand how users currently find and categorize music
Propose a solution that improves discoverability and satisfaction
Research
Heuristic Evaluation
We used Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics to audit three core discovery flows:
Visually cluttered home page design
Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
Poor visibility of playlist tools
Flexibility and Efficiency of Use
Navigating back resets scroll position
User Control and Freedom
Unintuitive daylist descriptors
Match Between the System and the Real World
Unexpected “+” button behavior
User Control and Freedom, Error Prevention
Refining AI playlist replaces content
User Control and Freedom, Error Prevention
Survey Insights
Our survey aimed to gather detailed insights into Spotify users’ preferences, focusing specifically on content discovery, playlist curation, and the utility of AI-based features. We conducted qualitative and quantitative analyses on our results.
What could be improved about your experience with music discovery on Spotify?
“I wish there was a more centralized ‘hub’ for discovering music where I could look at the various playlists Spotify recommends.”
“Being able to search for playlists by mood. It’s hard to find a playlist that encompasses a mood or vibe if the playlist name doesn’t have exactly what you’re looking for.”
“Being able to see the songs I listened to that aren’t saved would be nice.”
“Show the current top 10 songs of genres that the user prefers to listen to.”
Top Methods for Music Discovery
Personalized Playlists
Premade Spotify Playlists
Playlist Recommendations
AI Features
Song Radios
Searching by Artist
How do users categorize their music within playlists?
Mood
Genre
Artist
Hypothesis
Research Insights
Spotify has an ample amount of content discovery avenues: AI DJ, daylist, Smart Shuffle, Daily Mixes—you name it. But why do we experience friction searching for and using these tools?
Certainly, content discovery relies on algorithms, which may not be directly within our design purview. Instead, how can we focus on implementing UI features as design solutions that will streamline content discovery?
Our Hypothesis
Creating a dedicated space for content discovery will help users more easily identify and access relevant tools in their music journey.
Our Solution
Product Walkthrough
We designed a new page within Spotify: the Content Discovery Hub—a single place for the tools you use to discover music and new insights.
In addition to this new one-stop shop for content discovery, we introduced tooltips for daylist and Your Weekly Wrap-Up, so you don't have to wait for Spotify Wrapped to come out every year.
Usability Testing
We completed four moderated user studies, where participants were asked to complete these tasks on both the Home page and Content Discovery Hub:
Rate their satisfaction with each section on the page from 1-5.
Identify two tools they typically use for content discovery.
We also asked users to give a description of their daylist before and after the implementation of tooltips for daylist descriptors.
Our results?
36%
increase in satisfaction of content sections
Comparing the content sections of the homepage and Content Discovery Hub.
Average rating increased from 2.875 → 3.8
45%
faster identification of desired content discovery tools
Comparing the time it takes to identify two tools used for content discovery on the homepage and Content Discovery Hub.
Average decreased from 27.665 seconds → 12.61 seconds
We also found that tooltips significantly increased users’ understanding of what their daylist descriptors mean.
Before: Without Tooltips
“The daylist is very angsty about relationships, mostly the relationship phase where there’s a lot of woes and issues.”
vague, doesn’t describe the music itself
After: With Tooltips
“It’s all very sad about relationships or lack thereof, and a lot of the songs are about wanting one. It has slow and melodic music, like very mellow or warm songs with an autumny-vibe. It has that feeling of longing for someone who isn’t there anymore.”
specific description,
uses terminology from tooltips
Key Takeaways
Implications
Centralization reduces friction and increases engagement.
The Content Discovery Hub has a higher satisfaction rating in terms of content. The integration of AI features like Weekly Wrap-Up, daylist, and Discover Weekly into the daily experience resonated with users.
Optimized content navigation reduces cognitive load.
Giving users a single home for exploration significantly improved task speed and satisfaction by lowering cognitive effort needed to locate desired features.
Tooltips increase understanding and literacy.
With tooltips, we observed literacy changes in descriptions of users’ daylist, suggesting that providing contextual guidance helps users better understand their content and listening habits.
What I learned
Design is often about surfacing value, not adding features.
One of my biggest realizations was that Spotify already had great discovery tools—users just couldn’t easily get to them. This taught me the importance of making existing functionality more accessible before rushing to add new ones.
Design supports and complements AI.
While algorithms do the heavy lifting, thoughtful UX design helps users trust and use AI-generated recommendations more effectively.
Clarity and context matter.
Tooltips made unfamiliar features more approachable and increased context literacy by providing descriptive labels. A small change in UX writing can shift how users perceive and describe their experience. Language is just as important as layout in creating intuitive interactions.