Music Streaming App
Foundational UX research
Who streams, where, and what would make them switch? A survey, competitive scan and personas that pointed the MVP toward offline reliability, better discovery and simple pricing.
Understand behaviors, pain points and switching triggers.
The findings would inform MVP features, pricing direction and the discovery and playlist strategy. Browse the research slides below; double-click for full screen.
Price and interruptions decide who stays.
Participants skewed 18 to 44 and 65% female. They listen on the move: commuting, at work and at the gym. That context explains almost every frustration they described.
Discovery & playlists
Most lean on app-curated playlists. Better recommendations and themed mixes matter more than creation tools.
Interruptions & access
Ads and unreliable offline playback are the biggest breaking points.
Switching triggers
Price and uninterrupted access dominate: tiered plans and strong offline.
Devices & contexts
Car and gym first: hands-free controls and downloaded playback.
Oscar West
Tech-savvy DJ and engineer
- Context
- Time-constrained; uses music to focus and unwind
- Needs
- Quick mood presets, daily auto-mixes, repeat and artist-only modes
- Pain
- Interruptions, weak offline, repetitive recommendations
- Opportunity
- DJ-style curated sets; focus tracks surfaced by context
Mia Cruz
Culinary student on the go
- Context
- Balancing school and work; music for energy and culture
- Needs
- Hands-free controls, downloaded playlists, genre discovery by region
- Pain
- Time pressure, hard-to-find artists, ads breaking flow
- Opportunity
- Creator-curated lists; muted “window” ads that don’t pause playback
- “Sounds like…” AI-assisted recommendations and DJ-style sets
- Built-in recognition to capture what’s playing and add it to a playlist
- Clearer playlist controls: repeat, skip, visible track length, artist-only mode
- An opt-in social layer to follow friends and creators without friction
The MVP focused on offline reliability, recommendation quality and a simple tiered plan: a roadmap built around commute, work and gym.
Context drives the design.
This research showed that where people listen, in the car, at the gym, at work, shapes what they need. The living room is another context: shared, lean-back and remote-driven.
Lean-back discovery
People leaned on curated playlists over building their own, which suits a TV shelf of mixes.
Interruptions hurt
Ads that break the flow were a top frustration; on a shared TV they interrupt everyone.
Shared listening
An opt-in social layer maps naturally to a household around one screen.
Simple control
Clear play, skip and repeat controls matter more when the input is a remote.
