Enhancing the YouTube Music experience for offline listeners.

Industry:

Music, Digital Streaming

Project Year:

2021

Use cases:

Provide a more familiar and intuitive experience
Make it easier for users to find, manage, and play their downloaded music
Reduced data and battery usage
Enhanced satisfaction for freemium users

The digital music streaming industry in APAC is highly competitive, with users having numerous options for accessing music on their mobile devices.

The market is characterised by a strong preference for free, minimal ad-supported services, making the offline listening experience a crucial differentiator. The transition from Google Play Music to YouTube Music created an opportunity to address user pain points and improve market share in this segment.

The need for an improved offline experience

The migration to YouTube Music proved problematic for many users, especially those using free memberships and relying on offline listening.

The transition was marked by several key issues:

Loss of familiar functionality: Users missed familiar features from Google Play Music, particularly those related to managing and playing locally stored music.

Poor offline experience: The YouTube Music app's offline mode was perceived as clunky, difficult to navigate, and lacking essential features.

Intrusive advertising: The prevalence of advertising, especially for free users, significantly detracted from the user experience.

Performance issues: Users reported issues such as slow loading times, cumbersome playlist management, and other performance problems.

A user-centered approach to redesign

To address these challenges, I adopted design-thinking methodology, incorporating the following key stages:

Empathise & define: The initial stages focused on understanding user needs and defining the core problem through research and analysis.

Ideate: Based on the research insights, potential solutions were brainstormed and explored.

Prototype: Low-fidelity sketches were created using the Crazy 8s method, progressing to low, mid, and high-fidelity prototypes in Figma.

Test: Usability testing was conducted with potential users to gather feedback and iterate on the design.

Insights into offline music consumption

A mixed approach of primary research (user surveys & interviews) with secondary research (analysis of news articles, user reviews, and social media discussions) was conducted. Affinity mapping was employed to synthesise the findings. The research revealed several key insights that informed the redesign:

46.6% of the music listeners use the music app’s free membership.

As a vast collection of songs, downloading songs, playlist creation, and an option to listen to uploaded songs from their device are available for free, users prefer free services over paid membership.

“Google Play Music is the best without any diversion to music. We can freely listen to our favourite songs, and the app is easy to use and has all the functions. However, several features for uploaded content aren’t currently working in the free YouTube Music experience (YouTube Reviews, 2020).”

37.9% of users prefer to use offline mode in their music app.

Listening to songs using the Internet requires a lot of bandwidth and drains the device's battery faster. Due to this, most users prefer offline mode over online.

Spotify (31%) and Wynk (20.7%) are other popular music apps.

Users love Spotify and Wynk over YouTube Music due to its clean UI, wide collection of songs, easy creation of playlists, and sharing of playlists/songs using free services.

“When Spotify came about, I embraced it as the change the music industry needed. Then Google Music popped up. It was cheaper, and it was Google, so I subbed. I was pleasantly surprised. It worked great. Discovering music felt actually intelligent - building on my preferences. It was smooth, loading playlists with hundreds of songs instantly. Then Google forced me onto YouTube Music. Every time I open the app, I get a gigantic ad for Taylor Swift or some other pop song. The app is slow and clunky. Loading playlists, which was instant on Google Music, resulted in minutes of scrolling down a lazy loading list. The shuffle button somehow doesn't work. It's generally a waste app (Reddit, 2020).”

Problems with YouTube Music (Survey by 9To5Google).

Proposed design changes to improve offline experience

The redesign focused on enhancing the offline listening experience for free users by addressing the identified pain points:

A separate tab for offline content, mirroring the familiar organisation of Google Play Music, improving discoverability and ease of navigation.
Remove the functionality of Search, Explore, and Library tabs in offline mode to focus the interface on downloaded content.
Relocate the search function to the bottom of the screen for easier access.

Prototyping and usability testing

Using the Crazy 8s method, the Lo-Fi sketch was done. The prototypes were then designed using Figma.

Lo-fi Wireframe

Mid-fi Wireframe

Hi-fi Wireframe

Usability testing with several users and 80% of them confirmed the positive impact of the redesigned offline mode. Feedback also highlighted the need for improved scrolling and page transitions, which were subsequently implemented.