Role
(team of 3)
Timeline
Scope
Tools
Challenge
How to get Deezer users to regularly add songs to their collection and maintain this habit over the long term
Alexis Czornomaz, VP Product Design at Deezer, and Product Designer members of his team Victor Cartier and Tom Abourmad, came to pitch us and gave us feedback on the project
Deezer is a French unicorn and second largest independent music streaming platform created in 2007. Deezer has developed a scalable and differentiated global platform, supported by its state-of-the-art product, and successful hybrid B2B/B2C business model.
The Product Design team at Deezer observed that regular gathering of music content encourages retention, and they want to get users to regularly add songs to their collection and maintain this habit over the long term.
User Research
To better understand the problem we are trying to solve and the motivations of users, we conducted qualitative user research
We conducted a qualitative study with five people aged between 26 and 34, all music streaming app users.
Each participant took part in a 45-minute semi-directive interview to provide information on theses three music subjects: discovery, collection and recurrence.
We wanted to understand:
What came out:
Users prefer recommendations from peers.
- it’s guarantee of quality
- it gives a sense of belonging
« Lack of humanity, lack of context when it comes to algorithmic recommendations, it’s less selective. »
– Lena
Users would like to have more information on artists and their listening habits.
- to know the artist label could lead to other artists of the same label
“That is important to know the context, what are the artist’s influences. That is why I’m particularly interested in him.”
– Alexis
Don’t organize the content they collect, even though they see it as useful.
- it’s too complex
- it takes too much time
- it takes too much effort when today, the technology is making things quicker and easier
« I stopped [the playlists] because it’s annoying to maintain. »
– Christophe
It’s thanks to recommendations and the sharing of information via and about people that users collect musical content.
Defining the problem
How might we humanize the process of musical discovery and simplify the use of the library in order to ritualize the collection?
Ideation
With these clear and explicit learnings in mind, we explored and generate ideas to remove these frictions and meet user needs
From Mindmap & Crazy8…
Those ideation workshops helped us identify what we should focus on. We are convinced that the best way to humanize the process of musical discovery is to create a bond between peers and a sense of belonging.
Moreover, we think it would be a good idea to create a way of adding sounds to playlists more directly in the player.
…to Benchmark!
After taking a look at the competitors, we noticed that they push content to their users on a weekly or daily basis in order to ritualize the collection.
To come up with a solution, we have benchmarked applications that allow you to present information in a more appealing and engaging way.
We also took a look at applications that capitalized on communities to drive engagement.
Solution
Create a sense of belonging and facilitate the discovery and management of favorites
Success Criteria
We added KPIs that will allow us to measure the impact once our solution will be implemented.
Creation of communities: The Tribes
Creation of communities: The Tribes
To meet the need for a sense of belonging, we came up with the solution of creating communities. These communities, called Tribes, bring together users with similar listening habits.
To create these Tribes, we used existing data from My Deezer Year’s « Genre » tarot cards.
In the page, there are the Tribe’s top artists and a fresh 50-track playlist, updated weekly from community favorites.
The feature also presents a « Focus of the Week » spotlight, highlighting an artist tailored to our Tribe’s tastes.
Quick add to playlist
Quick add to playlist
To make it easier to organize your library, we’ve created a banner that lets you quickly add a track to a playlist directly from the player.
User Tests
Now let's test it out, optimize and iterate
To deliver a successful solution and create a great user experience, we performed a series of user tests.
What came out:
Were confused about the criteria for defining Tribes. Even if they collected sounds/artists through it.
« I find the concept interesting in the case that it is indeed the whole tribe that participates in the playlist. I think I could go for the tribe thing rather than the flow. »
– Christophe
We changed the criteria for defining Tribes. Each group is created according to the genres and moods listened to by its members.
We’ve also added a more exhaustive description of the Tribe:
- in the insert of the favorites page
- in the Tribe page
Were disappointed not to have a choice of playlist on which to add the track.
« I don’t understand the point of creating this playlist if it automatically names it according to musical style. »
– Pierre
It is now possible to select the playlist of your choice if the automatic suggestion is not adequate.
All the users found a real interest in the human side of Tribes to discover sounds and artists. They also have noticed and appreciated the « quick add » feature to a playlist.
Demo time!
Next step
To develop this project, it would be interesting to work with a Data Analyst to refine the categorization of tribes and do A/B testing to validate the place of the Tribe functionality.
We could also develop the functionality by making it possible to consult other Tribes and capitalize on the social aspect (e.g. voting for an artist, discussion groups, etc.).