Spotify PRD Case Study

Problem statement

Spotify has always been designed as a single-user experience, as we do not support user-to-user social interaction directly in-app, but as times passed we received many requests from users (Spotify Community) expressing their need to share songs directly within the app.

Objective

Increase Spotify’s premium users
Increase Spotify’s premium users retention

Proposed Solution

Aligned with Spotify’s slogan, “music for everyone” we should enhance our Following and Followers feature to allow users to send messages & share songs to their friends, creating our very own unique selling point.
We used to have the messaging feature, but in Q1 2017 we removed it since it had very low engagement. Building on the network effect theory, where more users can improve the value of a product, we should implement this messaging feature as we seeked a 270,45% monthly active users increase (Q1 2017 – Q4 2022).
Regarding our concerns on potential spam & bots, this feature will only exclusively be available to premium users, as we encourage non-premium users to upgrade their experience, and also eliminate the potential bots.

User Stories

User Story Group	User Story	UI/UX
Home Page	As a user, I’m able to see the messaging feature on tabs.

Acceptance criteria: Users are shown a new “friends” tab. | https://www.figma.com/file/Ks8j8jOpCqk5LmTXrU7BmF/Spotify-Messaging-Feature-UI%2FUX?type=design&node-id=0%3A1&t=Xaq82uAJNlx61EJi-1 | | Friends Page | As a user, I’m able to find my friends once I click the friends tab.

Acceptance criteria: Users are shown their lists of friends. | https://www.figma.com/file/Ks8j8jOpCqk5LmTXrU7BmF/Spotify-Messaging-Feature-UI%2FUX?type=design&node-id=0%3A1&t=Xaq82uAJNlx61EJi-1 | | Friends Chat Page | As a user, I’m able to chat with my friends once I click one of my friends.

Acceptance criteria: Users are able to send message on the Friends chat page | https://www.figma.com/file/Ks8j8jOpCqk5LmTXrU7BmF/Spotify-Messaging-Feature-UI%2FUX?type=design&node-id=0%3A1&t=Xaq82uAJNlx61EJi-1 | | Pick a Song Menu | As a user, I’m able to pick a song to send via +play button on the messaging bar.

Acceptance criteria: Users are shown +play button which allows them to pick a song to send. | https://www.figma.com/file/Ks8j8jOpCqk5LmTXrU7BmF/Spotify-Messaging-Feature-UI%2FUX?type=design&node-id=0%3A1&t=Xaq82uAJNlx61EJi-1 | | Pick a Song Menu | As a user, I’m able to send the song once I have already chosen it.

Acceptance criteria: Users are shown “send” button once the user has already picked a song | https://www.figma.com/file/Ks8j8jOpCqk5LmTXrU7BmF/Spotify-Messaging-Feature-UI%2FUX?type=design&node-id=0%3A1&t=Xaq82uAJNlx61EJi-1 | | Friends Chat Page | As a user, I’m able to see that I had already sent a song to my friend.

Acceptance criteria: Users are shown the song menu in the chat. | https://www.figma.com/file/Ks8j8jOpCqk5LmTXrU7BmF/Spotify-Messaging-Feature-UI%2FUX?type=design&node-id=0%3A1&t=Xaq82uAJNlx61EJi-1 |

Stakeholder Impact

For User	For Spotify
Can now interact (send messages, share songs with their friends) within the app	Potentially drive user retention which would lead to an increase in revenue by encouraging more users to subscribe to Spotify premium.

Performance Framework

Spotify’s Premium User increase
Spotify’s Premium User retention
Spotify’s Premium User on-screen time increase

Summary