The same goes for moods (based on Genres & Moods section of Browse feature) & any tags. There will be a default playlist (manually compiled or chosen from existing playlists), but customers will be able to put any song labeled as indie. Genres, Moods or Tags Like indie for a hipster cafe. Music is pre-defined to genres, moods or playlists. It can limit it's preferences in two ways.
So each Place should be able to establish some rules. Cafés, bars or shops have different ambience and preferences when it comes to music. Not every Place will allow you to play any kind of music. How realistic is this in a public place? Others could be opposed to you listening to Rammstein for a morning cup of coffee. Primary users' goal is to listen to their favourite music. I didn't have the time to prototype & test both options, so I decided to go with more predictable one & isolated feature from the rest of the app. To sum it up, isolation would limit search capabilities, while integration will result in strangely looking app with disabled Radio & Browse sections & more. It would be possible to navigate inside the app freely, but quite a lot of it will not be available due to Place's restrictions. But unlike regular external devices Jukebox is limited to only permitted music. This sounds more like development of the existing functionality. After you connect to it the app starts working differently. Jukebox can be treated like external device. Second option, to integrate feature seamlessly into the app, resembles Spotify Connect. User won't be able to go from search results to artist, album or playlist & continue to search there. In order for a user to stay in the Jukebox, the search should take place on the spot, which meant functionality duplication and non-standard search behaviour. This approach had several disadvantages, the main being the search. This means that the Jukebox is limited by its section and by leaving the section app returns to the regular rules.
There are two ways how to solve it.įirst option was to isolate feature from the rest of the app. So when user leaves Jukeboxe’s designated section, it becomes unclear which pattern to use. The logic of the scenario suggests to play it through a Jukebox, but the standard app logic - to play on the device.
To support such a difference in a single app, you need to make clear rules to the user. In Jukebox, on the other hand, a tap on a song should queue it for playback on an external system. Normally, a tap on a song in Spotify starts a playback. The feature in the main app caused another problem - inconsistency in interaction. Statistics vary between 0 and 2 new app installs per month.
Not everyone is ready to install a new application for a single use. I always liked the idea of “one task - one app”, but it will probably kill user acquisition. How should it look like? Should it be a feature in the Spotify app or a stand-alone application? Simplicity and elegance of standalone app is tempting.