Spotify Jam Redesign
Spotify Jam is a real-time collaborative listening feature that lets friends queue and listen to music together, either in-person or remotely.
Role:
UX Designer
Timeline:
April 2025
Tools
Figma
Background & Target Audience
Spotify Jam allows users to listen to music together, but the experience is fragmented and hard to initiate - especially when users are not physically together - leading to low engagement and drop-off. Many users associate Spotify Jam with car rides or parties, but there’s a growing desire to make shared listening a seamless experience from anywhere. The current setup for remote Jams is unintuitive, and many users struggle to figure out how to invite friends and sync playback.
Spotify Jam is designed for people who love listening to music socially—whether they’re hanging out with friends in person or syncing up remotely. We identified three key user groups:
Casual Social Listeners (Ages 16–30)
People who enjoy playing music in group settings - like dorms, parties, road trips, or shared apartments- and want a quick, easy way to share control of the playlist.
Friend Groups with Diverse Tastes
Groups who want a collaborative queue so that everyone’s music preferences are heard and no one has to DJ alone.
Persona
Meet Alex
Age: 22
Location: College student, often away from friends
Tech Comfort: Familiar with streaming apps
Motivation: Wants to share music with long-distance friends and feel connected through listening.
Pain Points:
Finds it hard to locate and start a Jam session.
Often gives up after failed attempts to sync playback.
Frustrated by unclear joining instructions.
Competitive Analysis
Platform | Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|---|
Apple Music | Simple UI for shared playlists | No real-time listening option |
Discord | Live audio sharing + chat | No integration with streaming services |
Spotify Jam | Strong social and music discovery features | Complicated setup, no remote listening |
Problem Statement
While Spotify Jam offers a fun way for friends to listen together, the current experience can feel confusing and inconsistent- especially when multiple people try to join, add songs, or control the session.
Users often struggle with:
Understanding how to start or join a Jam session
Knowing who is in control or how the queue works
Managing collaboration without accidental interruptions
How might we redesign the Spotify Jam experience to make real-time group listening more intuitive, collaborative, and fun—especially in fast-paced social settings?
Turning Ideas into Design
I started by sketching out the user flow to understand how users would interact with Spotify Jam from start to finish, especially for remote listening. The goal was to make it intuitive, starting with a simple onboarding experience and continuing through to a seamless group listening session.
Prototyping
Easy Session Creation: Users should be able to create a session with one or two taps, regardless of whether they’re starting it locally or remotely.
Remote Listening Feedback: Added a feature to allow users to see when their friends are connected and when playback is in sync.
In-App Invitations: Simplified the invitation process by integrating it into the Jam interface rather than relying on external links.
Key Takeaways
Simplifying the user flow had a positive impact. The more intuitive the experience, the higher the engagement
Testing the user flow early allowed me to identify friction points quickly and iterate on them before investing too much time into design details.
