Research & UX/UI Design for Audio Song Search in Spotify

1. User interviews

I started by running 25–35 minute interviews to learn how people find music outside Spotify, how they find it within Spotify, and what frustrates them about the app.

• Outside Spotify, most people Googled lyrics, used Shazam, or asked Siri what was playing.

• Within Spotify, they searched lyrics (using Lyrics Match) or specific songs and artists, scrolled recommended playlists, or used Radio, Discover Weekly, and Daily Mix.

• Four of six had used Shazam, and two still did. Three wanted the two integrated, with comments like "One less app to use to drain phone battery" and "One stop shop to Shazam and Spotify."

2. Competitor analysis

I compared Spotify with YouTube, Pandora, and Apple Music across free and premium accounts, listening with others, playlists, radio, and song sharing. Spotify was the only one with a "listen with others" feature, and its noted strengths were its algorithm and Lyrics Match. Its noted weakness was no live radio.

3. The existing Shazam connection

Because participants kept mentioning Shazam, I looked at how the two apps work together today, using Spotify's community help page.

• Once connected, a "My Shazam Tracks" playlist is created in Spotify and later Shazams are added to it automatically.

• To add a song to a different playlist, users tap Open in Shazam, which opens a Spotify search showing every version of that song, and then choose one.

• The page includes fixes for syncing problems, including disconnecting Spotify in Shazam, restarting both apps, and reconnecting.

Friction: The connection reduces app-switching but doesn't remove it. Users identify the song in one app, set up and maintain a link between two, and search for the right version in Spotify to save it where they want. This confirmed the opportunity: identify and save in one place.

4. Persona

I created a persona, Levi Anderson, for this project. Levi is a 28-year-old project manager in Los Angeles who listens for hours a day while commuting, working, and at the gym, and on Google Home devices at home. He loves recommended playlists, is always looking for new music, and often tries to identify songs playing in a friend's car or in public.

• Goals: find music he discovers within Spotify, and save it to a playlist for later.

• Pain points: too many ads on a free account, and suggestions that don't match his taste.

• Need: "I'd like to be able to find new music without having to switch between different apps."

5. Task flows

Through my ideation phase, I mapped two possible paths from the moment Levi hears an unfamiliar song: 1) selecting a song-search feature from the home screen, or 2) tapping a microphone icon on the search page. Either way, he searches by audio or lyrics, and a "song found" pop-up lets him play the song or save it to a playlist.

6. Sketches

I explored two layouts for where the feature could live. One put a dedicated "Audio Match" row on the home screen, leading to a listening screen and a "song found" card. The other used a floating search button in the bottom corner that expands into "Audio" and "Lyrics" options, similar to a Tweet button on the Twitter app.

7. Hi-fi wireframes and prototypes

I built the flows in high fidelity in Figma, then linked the screens into two flow prototypes and tested them. Users preferred the flow with the search button in the bottom corner, with options to search by audio (like Shazam) or by lyrics. In the final design, a match opens a pop-up reading "Audio Match found a matching song," with the title and artist, and buttons for "Go to Artist" and "Add to Playlist."