Spotify
Product | Proyotype| Brand
Services
Ux Design | UI Design| APP Design
Location
HerNdon | 2024
Summary
A Playlist for You
Electric vehicle (EV) drivers face significant challenges, including range anxiety, difficulty locating reliable charging stations, and limited access to service centers, which hinder the widespread adoption and convenience of EVs. This project aims to be a comprehensive solution that provides real-time information on charging infrastructure and service locations and optimizes route planning to ensure a seamless and positive EV ownership experience
The Vision
The Soundtrack of You - Shared
It started with a familiar moment: opening Spotify, tapping “Made For You,” and feeling unsure where the playlists had actually gone. The content was there — personalized, curated, and thoughtful — but buried beneath layers that made it feel like a feature users had to find, rather than one they were invited into. What should have felt effortless instead became a quiet point of friction.
At the same time, we noticed something else: on desktop, a subtle social thread still existed.
You could see what your friends were listening to — not in a loud or performative way, but in a way that made Spotify feel alive. That ambient connection was completely missing on mobile, where the experience had become highly individual, but oddly isolating.
So we began asking: how might we make personalization feel instinctive, not hidden? How might we bring back the warmth of social listening without making it feel like another feed to perform in? And how might we help Spotify feel less like a tool — and more like a companion?
Research
Lost in Plain Sight
Most users didn’t realize how many “Made For You” playlists existed — or where to find them.
Personalization wasn’t the problem; visibility was. The music was curated, but the interface left it feeling lost.
The same was true for Spotify’s social layer. On desktop, you could see what friends were listening to — but on mobile, that presence disappeared. The sense of shared listening was gone, and with it, the subtle joy of discovering through others.
What we heard in research wasn’t frustration — it was surprise. Spotify had more to offer than users realized. They just couldn’t see it.
Opportunity
What It Could Have Been All Along
Spotify didn’t need to add more features — it needed to bring clarity to the ones already there.
Personalized playlists existed, but they were hidden. Social listening was possible, but barely visible.
There was an opportunity to make “Made For You” feel like a natural, intuitive destination — not something users had to hunt for. By giving it visual and navigational weight, we could turn passive discovery into a daily ritual. The goal was emotional recall: a playlist that felt timely, even if you hadn’t asked for it.
We also saw a space to gently revive the social layer. Not through comments or likes, but through quiet presence — seeing what a friend is playing, without needing to say a word. Music could become shared again, even in silence.
Solved
A New Way In
We redesigned the “Made For You” experience to live at the emotional center of the app — not hidden behind tabs or categories, but surfaced with intention, turning what was once a scattered archive of playlists into a seamless, intuitive destination users could enter without thinking and leave feeling seen.
Alongside it, we introduced a soft, unobtrusive social layer that let users passively glimpse what their friends were listening to — not as a feed to perform in, but as a subtle presence that restored the communal rhythm of music without ever asking for attention.
Result
Rediscovered, Not Reinvented
During testing, users found the redesigned “Made For You” section significantly easier to access and navigate — many remarked that for the first time, they understood just how much Spotify had been curating for them all along. It felt less like a feature and more like a destination, something they could return to daily without friction or fatigue.
The lightweight social layer sparked an immediate emotional response — not because it demanded interaction, but because it reintroduced the quiet joy of shared listening. Users described it as “comforting,” “surprisingly intimate,” and “a small reminder that I’m not the only one feeling this song right now.”
We didn’t increase the volume of content or invent new features — we simply gave the best parts of Spotify a clearer voice and better stage. And in doing so, we restored a sense of rhythm between the user, their playlists, and the people quietly listening beside them.
Design
Revealing What Was Always There
The design didn’t speak louder – it simply let the user hear what had always been playing beneath the surface
