Auditing Spotify.
One of the most personalized products around, audited end-to-end against its own goals — acquisition, engagement, premium conversion. The friction hides in the getting-there.
I audited Spotify end-to-end against its own goals: acquisition, engagement, premium conversion. The personalization engine is world-class, but discovery friction — podcast search, filtering, navigation labels that don't match intent — quietly works against it. I turned the audit into a feature roadmap: music recognition, richer filters, customizable display, and renaming Home to match what users actually come to do.
The problem
Spotify's growth goals are clear: acquire listeners, keep them engaged, convert them to premium. But small frictions work against all three — podcast discovery and search fall short, playlists are awkward to edit, filtering and sorting are limited, the experience shifts between devices, and navigation labels don't match what people come to do.
The audit question: where exactly does a world-class product get in its own way — and what would fixing it look like?
The personalization is world-class. The path to it isn't.
The audit board
15 SLIDES · ORIGINAL DECKHow I worked
Map goals to needs
Paired Spotify's business goals with what listeners actually come to do: discover personalized content, manage playlists, share music socially. Every finding had to connect both sides.
Audit end-to-end
Walked the app and website as a SWOT — where the product delivers on its promise, and where the seams show. Strengths and weaknesses both documented against real user tasks.
Rank the friction
Prioritized the weaknesses by how directly each one blocks a growth goal — discovery friction first, since it undercuts the personalization engine that drives everything else.
Turn it into a roadmap
Translated the audit into concrete features: music recognition, richer filtering and sorting, customizable display settings, better podcast search, and renaming "Home" to match intent.
The audit, condensed
SWOT — APP + WEBSITE- ·Clean, minimal navigation and design
- ·Personalization that people talk about — Discover Weekly, Wrapped
- ·An ecosystem that spans devices and contexts
- ·Social features built into the listening experience
- ·Limited filtering and sorting in a giant catalog
- ·Podcast discovery and search fall short of the music experience
- ·Playlist editing adds friction to a core habit
- ·Inconsistency between devices; "Home" doesn't say discovery
What the audit said
SOURCE — END-TO-END PRODUCT AUDIT- a.
Discovery gaps weaken a strong personalization engine. The recommendations are excellent — but search, filters, and podcast discovery make people work to reach them.
- b.
User control drives engagement in content-heavy products. Filtering, sorting, and display settings aren't power-user extras — they're how listeners make a huge catalog theirs.
- c.
Clearer navigation improves feature adoption. "Home" is where discovery lives, but the label doesn't say so — features people would love go unfound.
- d.
Cross-device consistency underpins retention. Listening moves between phone, desktop, and speakers all day — every inconsistency is a small reason to drift.
Where it landed
A UX and product improvement roadmap aligned to Spotify's growth goals, where every recommendation traces to an audited friction:
- —Music recognition — a Shazam-like feature that turns hearing a song anywhere into a save.
- —Richer filtering, sorting, and customizable display — giving listeners control over how the catalog meets them.
- —Better podcast search + renaming "Home" — so the discovery engine is as findable as it is good.