Reimagining Your Library
In 2019, Spotify announced its audio first strategy and the new library featuring podcasts. Joining the team post-launch, I led the 'Reimagine Your Library' project, addressing scalability issues to align with Spotify's goal of becoming the leading global audio platform. My role was pivotal in expanding and refining the library's functionality and user experience.
MY ROLE
Product Design Manager and Product Area Lead
Senior Stakeholder Management
Design Direction
TIMELINE
Q4 - Understand & Define
Q1&2 - Build & Beta test
Q3- Launch
THE FINAL PRODUCT
The Challenge
The 2019 Spotify update was a significant step, introducing podcast integration, removing limits on user collection and simplified backend technology. Despite these advancements, user reactions were mixed, and the update didn't fully scale to meet Spotify's ambitious vision. The challenge was to refine 'Your Library' to better align with user needs and Spotify's audio platform goals.
The 2019 launch changes and user sentiment
The Process
First 'get the right design, then get the design right'. For the first step: get the right design; my approach involved three crucial steps: understanding team dynamics for clear communication, defining a focused end goal, and inspiring proactivity.
01. Clarify team dynamics and goals
Clarify stakeholders, roles and responsibilies. Align on core goals and metrics.
02. Influence towards action.
Generate diverse solutions, rapid prototype and test. Use alinged goals as guidance.
03. Enable leaders in the team
Cultivate trust through mentorship, delegate strategically, and foster innovation.
The Product
Experience Goal
Empower users with a solution that is both flexible and adaptive, enable them to effortlessly retrieve and organize their diverse audio content collection.
Product Goals
Increase in saves and follows
Increase variety of content (stream)
Decrease time-to-stream
Business Impact
Increase streams from Your Library
Easily scale to more content types
Let's talk scalability
Launching Audiobooks
2 years later - 2022
The dynamic filters seamlessly scaled to meet the specific needs for Audibooks. The Audiobook retrieval did not need any additional adjustments.
Home and Search
3 years later - 2023
By 2023, our dynamic filter became a key element across all platforms in our design system, enhancing easy retrieval and navigation. Additionally, the subfilter solution played a crucial role in the strategic navigation for the new home launch that year.
Key results
20%
⌃ Positive user sentiment on social media
2%
⌃ Stream-through-rate
Variety of content
3%
⌃podcast consumption
4%
⌃ Followed podcasts
Next steps
& Learnings
We refined 'Your Library' by closely tracking feature usage, focusing on data-informed design optimization. My case study delves into the product iteration process. Want to dive deeper? Reach out and I'd be happy to discuss the details with you.