Project Overview
With podcasts increasing in popularity, Spotify has spent hundred of millions investing in podcasts. To complement the acquisitions of podcast channels, how can Spotify provide a user experience that satisfies podcast listeners?
Goal
The goal is to understand Spotify podcast users and provide a superior user experience that improves user retention rates.
How Might We
Based on the user personas and customer journey map, there are two main pain points that can be identified — 1. the discovery and selection phase, 2. the sharing phase. On closer look, I realise that the last phase of the journey, titled “finding similar content”, is very similar to the ‘discovery and selection’ phase.
To help users in the discovery process, the first step was to conduct a content audit. Through the audit, we can see that the visibility of “podcasts” is blended in with other music categories.
The first solution proposed in the new IA is to allow users to access podcasts directly from the ‘home’ page, instead of going through the ‘search’ page. Additionally, this new visibility may encourage non-podcast listeners to explore podcasts on Spotify, and elevate Spotify’s position as a podcast streaming platform.
The next step in addressing the discovery process is an introduction for hashtags. Beyond the categories that Spotify has allocated, allowing podcast channels to add hashtags to their channel/episodes creates additional organic categorisations that help users find similar content. This may also help Spotify suggest more accurate content for each user.
Allowing users to search by keywords and hashtags provides for more accurate results. Additionally, allowing users the option to browse by Episodes or Channels gives user more control and flexibility in their discovery experience.
Searching for similar content can be as simply as clicking the hashtags associated with the podcast that the user has enjoyed listening to.
What's Next
Doing further user interviews and testings will be beneficial in determining the likely reception of the new features. Gathering feedback from podcast channels will be also be helpful in understanding how channels would like to be categorised / categorise their episodes.
