Amazon Music
I drove the vision and execution of the transformation of Amazon Music's playback experiences into the stage, an awe-inspiring, extendable framework designed to inspire creativity, build community and drive self-expression.
My Role
Product Design Lead for Immerse & Culture Pillars
Collaborations
Development, Product Management, UX, Research, Data Science, Leadership
Partnerships
Artist Portal (ALPS), Growth & Marketing, Artist & label relations, personalization, Podcasts, Music Videos, DJ Mode, X-Ray and Car Mode
Immerse
This involves layering in animated lyrics, artist photos, and sharing capabilities, alongside significant video improvements (vertical support on the now playing experience. Also refining secondary screens like the play queue for better usability and experimenting with unique social features such as personal photo integration and visualizers.
Culture
Driven primarily by the discovery theme by releasing New Releases, Trending and drive an overhaul of the charts cx
Discovery
Young Adults care deeply about staying up to date with current trends in music and culture. Amazon Music customers today struggle to find new and viral content
Community
Content consumption, especially for Young Adults, rarely happens in a vacuum, today’s consumers are simultaneously creators and curators, and expect deeper engagement with other people around creative expression
Self-Expression
Closely connected to Community is the need for YA to curate and express their musical identities. Feeling connected to artists is very important for YA and giving artists a platform to express themselves sends a clear message.
Fandom
Social media services have created new ways to be a fan — YA in particular have come to deeply value the sense of connection with creators and the community of fans around them that Instagram and TikTok provide. At the same time, other aspects of fandom such as going to concerts and sporting t-shirts and stickers are still predominantly offline behaviors.
Establishing Teams
In order to achieve this, we created single-threaded teams to work backwards from CX launch goals to address step changes to long term YA themes
Culture
Driven primarily by the discovery theme by releasing New Releases, Trending and drive an overhaul of the charts cx
Immerse/Stage
Driven primarily by the community and self-expression themes by updating the now playing UI to become the stage and leverage overlays to serve a wide range of immersive experiences. Beginning to layer in immersive overlays including animated lyrics, artist photos, lyric sharing, reimagined x-ray experiences, x-ray sharing and canvas style background animations.
Discover
Driven primarily by the discovery theme by improving recommendations and updating the home UI to include genres
Taste Collection
Driven primarily by self expression theme and discovery themes, this includes migrating likes as the core taste signal to enhance personalization
Identity/Me
Driven primarily by the self expression theme by releasing profiles and reorganizing the me page around likes
Playlists
Driven primarily by the community theme by creating community playlists and making core improvements to playlist creation.
Enhance Mood
Insights
Insights
Better together
Insights
Easy to use
Insights
Motivations
Lyrics
Access to lyrics is a compelling feature, with 35% of Young Adults (YA) globally citing easy-to-access lyrics for every song as a reason to try a new service
Artistic Elements
Artist visuals were one of the top five features YA wanted in an exciting new music streaming app. However, the social tools, music videos, and lyrics on current services like Spotify & Amazon Music are not meeting the bar raised by social media
Discovery
MSSs are the #1 source of music discovery for YA. Discovery can be serendipitous or with intent, though it is currently a source of frustration for creators. YA frequently start discovery tasks based on their mood (45% global, 61% in India) or with an artist (39% global)
Staying Current
They are interested in trending content and frequently start music discovery tasks by searching for new releases on Instagram/artist pages
Enjoyment
Music's primary job is to enhance mood and experiences. A high percentage of YA tune in daily to "change or elevate [their] mood" (60%). They also use it for background noise (52% daily)
Archetypes
14%
The Soloist
You view music as a private, personal experience. You prefer to quietly curate your listening (finding the right track, making playlists) and do not feel compelled to share your discoveries or broadcasts on social media.
8%
The Cruiser
You prefer immediate, mood-based music gratification over deep dives. You value effortless listening and are happy for others to choose the tunes (DJ). You are focused on the music's feel in the moment, rather than lyrics or custom playlists.
21%
The Professor
Music is a subject of intellectual curiosity for you, going beyond listening. You act as a musicologist, taking pride in specialized knowledge regarding the culture, technicalities (like sound systems or production), lyrics, or social/psychological aspects of the music you enjoy.
32%
The Curator
You are a knowledgeable and proud curator of music, focusing on artist history and deep collection discovery. You often become the designated music expert among friends, serving as the default DJ for parties and road trips, and an aficionado of music trivia.
14%
The Enigma
You have an eclectic, balanced approach to music. You occasionally share content but don't actively seek out information or community. You are flexible with listening, happy to switch between your own basic playlists and relying on others' curation
13%
The Socializer
You view music as a public passion and a social tool for connection and self-expression. You are active in sharing new discoveries, playlists, and concert experiences to keep your social circle informed and engaged.
Establishing Goals
Increase user engagement & retention
MAU 4%, mins/month by 2%, play days per month +2.5%, reduce churn rate
Business
Increase X-Ray Usage
CTR +3%, % of users who click through to related content
Business
Strengthen brand perception
Sentiment and awareness as a well as improve NPS rating to 4.3
Business
Music video toggle interactions
# clicks on audio/video toggle, time spent in video/audio once triggered
Business
Meaningful artist connection
Facilitate connections between artists and fans via facts, song credits, DJ Mode and merch
• Increase user engagement and retention
• Artist and creator monetization
• Strengthen brand perception
UX Goal
Visual engagement
Enhancing the emotional connection to music and providing artistic expression
• Increase user engagement and retention
• Strengthen brand perception
• Increase user satisfaction
UX Goal
Amplify discovery
By providing artist information, related content, lyric sharing experiences as well as recommendations from DJ Mode artists.
• Increase user engagement and retention
• More accurate and relevant recs
• Artist and creator monetization
UX Goal
Seamless playback control
Ensure we are meeting customer needs of playback management ingress points ensuring a smooth listening experience.
• Increase user engagement and retention
• Strengthen brand perception
• Increase user satisfaction
UX Goal
Key Releases
MVP
The MVP will be updating the now playing UI to the stage, leveraging high confidence overlays to serve as a platform for a range of listening experiences. The core table stakes based off of impact & archetype preferences will be animated lyrics, lyric sharing, video and x-ray.
Release 2
For the second release, we will weave in further improvements to x-ray and x-ray sharing of specific snippets. Additionally, we will refresh all secondary screens including updating share, casting, play queue and the overflow.
Release 3
Primarily focused on incorporating more love from our tenets, this includes kicking off canvas videos, refreshed immersive DJ Mode experience and the ability to customize lyric fonts & animations.
Release 4
The fourth release will focus on the community and social aspects of the stage. This includes the ability to comment/see other peoples comments in specific parts of a track. Giving users the ability to set their own background to songs and share this with their friends. Additionally, we will start experimenting with various use cases for visualizer
Principles
Amplify the artist
YAs connect deeply with artists and the creative expression behind music. The Stage should feel like a direct extension of the artist's vision/allow for self expression. The design and all elements should enhance, not overshadow the core musical artwork.
Instantly engaging, effortlessly deep
YAs have very high expectations for immediate appeal but also value depth. The experience should be visually striking and uncluttered. Interactions for deeper content (lyrics, videos, credits, related content) should be intuitive and discoverable, not overwhelming.
Intuitive for YA, Inclusive for all
While targeting YA, the core experience should remain usable and understandable for all Amazon Music customers while interactions and expressions should be leveraged thoughtfully and intuitively.
Seamless playback control
Ensure we are meeting the core needs of playback management ingress points while ensuring a smooth and trustworthy experience
Dynamism, a living canvas
Incorporate subtle but meaningful motion, dynamic backgrounds, and visual feedback to interactions. The stage is a flexible venue that can host various content types (video, podcasts, animations, visualizers) seamlessly. The experience should adapt and feel fresh over time.
Coherancy across content types, predictable interactions
The stage should feel familiar regardless of content types and should follow the same interactions, transition patterns and navigation paradigms
