Spotify Mix Beta—
good idea, wrong audience
ROLEUX Designer
Mixing is simple at its core. Two songs sounding good one after another. Energy moving. A room getting louder or a mood shifting. Most people who love music already feel this — they do it every time they build a playlist. Spotify saw that and built a feature around it. The concept was right. The interface was built for the wrong person.
TIMELINE2 weeks
WEBSITEMobile App
METHODSFigma · Survey
T H E P R O B L E M
Alex is a playlist curator who needs their music to flow the way it sounds in their head, because right now the gap between what they can imagine and what they can actually execute is too wide to cross.
K E Y Q U O T E 1
"I have an idea of how I want it to sound but executing takes too much time and effort."
K E Y Q U O T E 2
”I was really proud"
— when it worked, the feeling was there. The feature just makes it too hard to get there consistently.
0 1 P R I M A R Y R E S E A R C H — S U R V E Y
Beta access to Mix was limited to a subset of Premium users. 46 people surveyed, 28 usable respondents — those who had either used Mix before or tried it during the survey.
W H A T P E O P L E S A I D
1 3 / 1 7
were unconvinced that they would use this feature again after their first session
"Kind of feels designed for someone who has DJ'd before."
— Survey Participant
1 2 / 1 7
didn’t fully understand the feature after trying it
7 / 1 1
had no familiarity at all with mixing terminology like EQ or 3A going in
"I just want to listen to my music."
— Survey Participant
"I have an idea of how I want it to sound but executing takes too much time and effort."
— Survey Participant
P E O P L E T R U S T T H E A U T O F E A T U R E
Auto was the most tried (8) and most appealing (8) control. While there were other tools, the appeal of these tools was significantly lower. People don’t seem interested in tools they have to learn.
"I don't think I know enough about mixing to use the feature."
— Survey Participant
N O B O D Y I S S T I C K I N G W I T H I T
Zero respondents use the feature regularly. Most said rarely or never. Drop-off happens within the first session as 7/11 have only tried it one to two times.
0 2 S E C O N D A R Y R E S E A R C H — Reddit r/truespotify
Cross-referencing survey findings against r/truespotify confirmed the same patterns at scale. The thread had 68 comments. The same frustrations — complexity, unfamiliar terminology, broken playback — appeared independently from strangers who had never taken a survey.
0 3 T A K E A W A Y
People don't want to learn to DJ. They want their music to sound good without thinking about it. While people dont seem oppossed to using it — the interface just asks too much to get there.
Three decisions up front: what song comes next, where the energy is going, how the blend sounds. Everything else should be opt-in.
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