Executive Summary
Spotify’s current “+” (Add) interaction prioritizes speed by instantly adding songs to liked songs, with playlist selection only appearing on a second click or tap.
while this design optimizes for quick saving, user research indicates meaningful friction for users who likes to organize there playlist, who represent a majority segment of Spotify listeners.
Based on:
- 103 Users survey responses
- Observation of current Spotify interaction flow
- Users behavioral patterns around playlist organization
This PRD proposes low risk, backward compatible interaction improvement to better support both fast savers and playlist centric users - without disrupting existing habits.
Problem Statement
Users who actively organize playlists, face unnecessary friction when adding songs to specific playlist.
Current Experience
- Users taps “+”
- Song is immediately added to liked songs playlist
- Users must tap “+” again
- Playlist picker appears
- Users select desired playlist
Resulting Issues
- Extra steps for frequent action
- Users default to liked songs even when its not there preferred destination
- Playlist organization becomes effortful rather than intentional
- This also leads to users begin frustrated, Need extra taps for cleanup Example: removing songs from “Liked songs playlist”
- Fully cluttered “Liked songs playlist”
User Research & Evidence
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Primary Research Survey — 103 Responses
Q1. Do you organize your playlist in Spotify?
- 72.8% — Yes
- 17.5% — No
- 9.7% — Do not use Spotify
Insight: A strong majority of Spotify users actively organize playlists, indicating that playlist intent is not a niche behavior.
Q2. Do you keep all songs in the default Liked songs playlist?
- 54.4% — Yes
- 35.9% — No
- 9.7 — Do not use Spotify
Insight: Users are split between:
- Fast Savers (Liked songs first)
- Intentional organizers (Playlist driven)
Spotify currently optimizes primarily for the first group that is “Fast Savers”
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Official Documentation
Spotify's blog post (Feb 2023) states: "The heart and the “Add to playlist” icons [are consolidated] into a single plus button, allowing users to save all songs, albums, playlists, audiobooks, podcasts or episodes to Your Library with one tap."
Insight: The behavior is working as designed to "streamline" saving, but it is poorly aligned with users who curate beyond "Liked Songs".
Hypothesis: Spotify merged the two actions into the single + button to "streamline" things making it easier to do both adding song to liked songs playlist + add to multiple playlists in one flow. However, this design helps casual users but overlooks Users Who saves songs to playlists consistently and assumes "Liked Songs" is universal.
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Qualitative Responses (Open - ended)
Common Themes:
- “Easy’
- “Convenient”
- “Lazy”
- “To many steps”
- “Everything in one place”
Interpretation: Users often default to liked songs playlist not because its ideal, but because playlist selection introduces cognitive and interaction cost.
Root Cause Analysis
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Primary Root Cause
The “+” button represents two distinct users intents with a single interaction:
- Quick save users
- Intentional playlist placement users
The UI currently prioritizes only quick save users.
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Secondary causes
- Playlist picker is hidden behind a second interaction
- No clear affordance for choosing playlists immediately
- Behavior is not explicitly communicated or discoverable
User Personas Impacted
Goals and Success Metrics
Solution Options
Risks & Mitigations