Last.fm
The Brief
Add a feature to an app
My Role
UX Designer
Tools
Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator
Background
Last.fm is a popular music service website that allows users to automatically track their listening habits, learn about new music, and discover new events coming to their town. It once had a more social user base and capabilities from its social networking past are still present, but those aspects fell by the wayside as the years went by.
The feed is now centered around presenting users with their own analytics. The main site now feels like a ghost town, even with an active user base. With no connection to other users at all, Last.fm’s mobile app is truly an isolated experience. In a world where every app has a social component, Last.fm’s app has nothing but analytics and manual inputs for your listening.
Discovery
Research
In the intro, I mentioned that Last.fm's mobile experience is isolated. Where music streaming apps might have a feed dedicated to discovery and even social feeds, this is a rundown of your data.
Above: screens from the current iteration of Last.fm's mobile app.
To be fair to Last.fm, they don't have what could be considered as "traditional" competitors. Streaming services certainly collect your data, but they don't share it with you. For a competitive analysis, I took a look at other entities in the landscape that have some sort of social element or data-driven activity.
Largest streaming service
Fully integrated with Last.fm
Yearly rundown of listening habits
You can be friends with other users, and follow them, but you don't get updates or any info out of them
Users can make collaborative playlists
Second-largest streaming service
Monthly rundown of listening habits
API isn't open, will not integrate fully with Last.fm
Users can make collaborative playlists
Social game connected to Spotify, users make a collaborative playlist (usually centered around a theme) and vote on their favorite song
Has ability to play with friends and share in the music experience
Discussion has to take place off app
It's a way to have fun with friends, and it keeps players engaged, but no stats
Key Takeaways
Last.fm really does stand alone with what it offers, making it a unique experience
Companies see music as a social product, one we can talk to friends about, but they're more than willing to let someone else host that discussion
Collaborative playlists are an obvious option when it comes to engaging users with each other
Last.fm has the ability to do all of these things, except for playing games with friends. Am I looking to add a game?
User Interviews
20 current Last.fm users were surveyed about their habits and their feelings toward the product
5 of those were selected at random for detailed one-on-one interviews
100%
Describe listening to music as a "social activity"
0%
Where Last.fm users are streaming
Key Takeaways
Users are currently passive when it comes to Last.fm: They set up the scrobbler (the tool that tracks your data) and never do anything with it
Users were mostly unaware of the social aspects, and even users who were aware mentioned it was ≥10 years since they last used them
60% of people mentioned they like games, but only 45% of respondents considered themselves to be "Competitive," so maybe I don't want to add a game
Interview subjects mentioned how decentralized their music discussions have become, leading to them not discussing music much at all
Synthesis
I interviewed two types of people when chatting with users, some of them were longtime users and some of them were more recent converts to Last.fm. Both of them were driven by the want to discuss music and art with likeminded folks, whether they're already friends or just need the connection.
I made two personsas to mirror those kinds of people, Mark and Lisa
Definition
Defining A Problem
Forums shifted to social media and they’re now shifting to apps like Discord, making them even more insular and more isolated. Listening to music and sharing that experience is a community activity.
Users love recommendations for new music or events, but they do not like it when those recs are inaccurate or feel impersonal
"How might we use Last.fm’s placement as a way to augment the current landscape rather than lure people away from their communities?"
"How might we provide a truly tailored experience for users that accurately reflects their habits and their community?"
Concept
With the problems identified, it's easier to determine where a solution might appear. At the beginning, I believed that the website's activity was mostly passive and that users weren't engaged, but that's not completely accurate. Users are engaged, they're just not engaged on the website itself. They still engage with the data.
Towards the start, I envisioned gamifying Last.fm and adding an element of competition to keep people engaged. I asked users if they liked competition and only 60% said they did. That's a majority, but that's not enough to make me think that it would attract users or keep them coming back to the website.
I thought about the social media infrastructure that's still on the website, and how all of the users loved their data and recommendations, and thought it could be neat to repackage this data in a way that users hadn't seen on Last.fm. Maybe users would enjoy a feed that allows them to see what friends are listening to and what their friends like that they might also like.
Feature List
Essential
Friend listening activity in feed
Specific listening and general listening breakdowns (Think albums and artists vs. genres)
Listening-based recommendations
Should Have
Proximity-based recommendations for live events based on listening habits
Commenting on user activity
Sending music to friends
Nice To Have
Collaborative playlists
Groups
Reintroducing: Obsessions
When considering features, I wanted to bring back Obsessions. These are sort of like Facebook's statuses or tweets, but they're just a song that you're obsessed with, with no commentary. It's an old-school update, but adding it to the feed allows for some user interactivity that isn't there now.
User Flows
Design
Designing this feed was an exercise in sticking to their branding and not reinventing the wheel when it comes to data presentation. I wanted to show users a reality that's already possible with the data they submit to Last.fm every time they listen to music. I used data that's available to me and was able to construct a feed with interesting insights and new places to explore in the database.
High Fidelity Wireframes
Quite a few changes were made after testing, including a pivot from a homepage that leads to sections to a dedicated homepage that gives recaps and requests feedback for last night's meal, and quick prompts for recipes that don't require navigating to the recipe page.
Testing
Determine what should be on the Friends feed
Evaluate user attitudes around a reintroduction of social features on Last.fm
Users will take a guided tour of the Last.fm Friends Feed
Users will explore the feed for themselves
Users will take a survey of their thoughts and feelings at the end of their testing
Key Takeaways
Users enjoyed the concept and wondered why it wasn't already available
I didn't include a way to add friends in the prototype, and people asked for it to be added to the home page
One user suggested a way to save music for later, and while I'm not sure I'll implement it, it's a great idea
Take the guided tour
Explore the feed
Take a survey of thoughts and feelings
Key Takeaways
In a second pool of users, they mirrored the first group's enjoyment the concept and again wondered why it wasn't already available
Exploration was easy and fluid
Users asked how much more social it could be or how much more social it needed to be
Obsessions is a quirky feature, a bit of a throwback, but it makes Last.fm unique
Select quotes:
"With the data that Last.fm has, I don't know why they don't have something like this. It seems like a no-brainer."
"…This is the kind of thing I'd much rather see than the recommendations I get on Spotify."
Testing didn't lead to a lot of suggestions for improvement and I think that's a product of being presented with a brand new feature that users hadn't considered. That being said, of the few suggestions I got, here are the ones I'd most likely implement:
Calendar integration with events suggested from the app
Add Obsessions to a playlist queue
A major consideration I hadn't made was how users' profiles would look. Currently, you cannot see another user's profile from your app, and your own profile page just takes you to your settings. On the left, I've mocked up a potential profile page that gives some recent activity, overall stats, and a user's current Obsession.
Looking back at this, I hope my love and appreciation for the current product shows through. I very much enjoyed this project from beginning to end, and it helped me learn a lot of design and layout tricks while working through it. It was great practice and I got faster and faster at making new pages for it, so by the end, I could add anything I wanted and make it fit in with everything else.
One other thing that really excited me about this project was the ability to use framework that already existed and re-integrating it for a new audience. I saw how excited users were about this and I loved being able to tell them that this was already possible. I think it's great to know a product so well that you can find new ways to show off the data you already have.
I know that a lot of UX design focuses on identifying and solving problems, and while I do see this as a solution, I think it makes more sense as a way to augment users' current experiences rather than solve their problems. Augmenting the experience is what Last.fm was built on, and I think that evolving the product would make users eager to use it rather than stay passive like they are now.
Jay Papandreas
Denver, CO
2025
Jay Papandreas, 2025, all rights reserved