Spotify: A reflection on usability and accessibility
Music has become a completely involuntary need to me at this point. So much so that Spotify is a non-negotiable part of my monthly budget. Allowing people to choose between a free or premium ad-free listening service, Spotify provides a wide variety of music and podcasts with a minimalistic design. Usability and accessibility are what sets products apart and it is important for companies to keep this in mind to ensure that they are creating products that their audience can successfully interact with.
Usability
1. Visibility of System Status
A song status bar and mini player allows the listener to know what song they’re listening to, the progress of how far into the song they are, and a play/pause function. The listener is also able to slide the progress bar to a specific time point in the song.
2. Match between the system and the real world
In order to relate the user with the real world, Spotify uses terms such as “Mood” to bring categories of music into a relatable space for the listener. There are also ways to search by activity that makes selecting songs seem very real rather than a cold search for a certain artist or song.
3. User freedom and control
One aspect that could be potentially problematic is the “remove from playlist” capability does not generate a window to ask the user if they are sure they would like to remove the song. This can lead to accidental deletion of songs from a given playlist since there is no way to undo this action aside from finding the song and adding it again.
4. Consistency and standards
Through the use of their familiar green color, it is always clear what buttons have been interacted with. The consistency of CTA buttons simplifies the task flow while listening. This includes the “like” button, current listening device, shuffle/repeat, as well as CTA buttons to create a cohesive experience. Additionally, the use of common words such as “Artist,” “Album,” “Library,” and “Radio” help the listener relate their Spotify experience to common music standards.
5. Error prevention
When online connection is lost, there is an error message letting the user know to reconnect online in order to browse or go back to the home screen. This tells the listener what is wrong and offers a suggestion towards how to go about fixing it.
6. Recognition rather than recall
A large amount of Spotify’s content is customized and suggested music including “Recently Played,” “Your top genres,” and “Made for you.” This prevents the listener from having to choose and search through an overwhelming amount of songs, artists, and albums to find exactly what they like or have listened to recently. Spotify will adjust your recommendations based on your listening and “liked song” history.
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
While creating playlists, Spotify recommends similar music towards the bottom of the page where you can quickly and easily add to your playlist without skipping a beat (pun intended). This speeds up the playlist creation process for the expert or frequent listener.
8. Aesthetic and minimalistic design
It’s no secret that Spotify’s brand has an appealing aesthetic that contains all necessary information without causing clutter. One of Spotify’s core design principles is a Swedish concept called “lagom” meaning just the right amount.
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
I have not come across many errors during my use of the app, however sometimes experience device connection issues which is easily fixed by restarting the app or connecting to wifi. There is a comprehensive support system on their website to help walk users through any potential problems, and the app makes any connectivity issue very clear with error messages.
10. Help and documentation
Not much help or troubleshooting can be attained through the mobile app and there is no contact information. Most of the help for Spotify is located either on the desktop application or within their website.
Accessibility
Spotify has an entire guild dedicated to accessibility and inclusive design and they are taking steps toward making their product more inclusive. They participate in charities to conduct user research on people with disabilities to further understand how to make changes necessary for their product to be widely accessible.
A hugely recognizable feature of Spotify’s brand is dark mode. Dark mode has been extremely popular lately for sustaining battery life, protecting your eyes from blue light, and not to mention, it looks really sleek. Amongst other reasons, Spotify chooses to keep their dark mode design to enhance their content first principle. While dark mode provides its advantages, is it inclusive?
According to the World Health Organization, 43% of global visual impairments are refractive, including astigmatism, a very common visual condition which causes objects to appear blurred. When white text appears on black backgrounds, “halation” causes a fog around the text in people with astigmatisms which can decrease readability and lead to eye strain and headaches.
Dark mode vs light mode readability is also largely impacted by environmental lighting factors, text size, and length of reading. As a music and podcast streaming app, users don’t spend too much time reading within the app and dark mode has become a branding decision that helps their product align with company principles. A lot of people prefer dark mode and for some and in certain situations it can decrease eye strain, however it is often important to provide users with control and choices to make a fully accessible experience.