Pratt x Amazon Music ’25 Design Challenge: Soundscape is a new feature offering real-time music insights to boost social engagement and retention.
See your listening habits update daily
Discover your music personalities and connect
Build listening streaks that keep you engaged
Boosting Social Interactions
Sharing music personalities and stats encourages connection with friends, sparking more in-app and external engagement.
Encouraging daily engagement
Badges and streaks turn listening into a habit, motivating users to return consistently and stay active on the platform.
Strengthening fan-artist connection
Interactive stats and insights deepen bonds between fans and artists, making the listening experience feel more personal and rewarding.
Now that you’ve had a peek, let’s go behind the scenes.
Questions: demographics, music listening and discovery behaviors, social sharing preferences, challenges, & their engagement through their specific tier.
Scraped reviews across Reddit, TikTik, Apple App Store, and Google Play Store to access a higher quantity of authentic, unfiltered user feedback.
SWOT analysis and detailed competitive analysis, comparing 4 of the top leading music streaming apps on the market.
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56% Wanted More Exclusive Content
This raises the question: how might we create artist-driven experiences that feel truly unique to Amazon Music, not just another playlist?
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38% Wanted Improved Social Features
How can we design features that make listening feel less isolated and more like a community?
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28% Wished for Gamified Rewards
The interest in streaks and badges shows a craving for achievement. How might we use gamification to motivate without feeling forced?
In discussions with our Amazon design mentors, we explored what was feasible from a business standpoint and what could realistically be implemented.
How might we bring more engaging, social features to casual listeners who use Amazon Music mostly in the background?
Since Amazon Music is in the process of developing social features, we thought that we would create features that build on this foundation, to enhance deeper personalization and engagement.
56% Wanted More Exclusive Content
Personalized stats create unique artist experiences
Instead of relying on exclusive licensing, we used personalized listening stats to make each user’s experience feel unique.
38% Wanted Improved Social Features
Music personalities build community and connection
We designed music personalities to spark conversation, allowing users to compare traits with friends and favorite artists.
28% Wished for Gamified Rewards
Streaks and badges encourage habit-forming
Gamified streaks and badges encouraged daily engagement, motivating users to return even for just one song.
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Users love the overall idea and design/aesthetics.
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Some features needed further clarifications
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Increase discoverability for certain features
The key user testing insights are:
01
90% needed clarification on results
Since the concept was new to users, we added clearer explanations of the feature. We also introduced opposite “personalities” and guiding questions to help users better understand what their results meant.
“I want to better understand the personality acronyms—especially what the opposite traits mean—so I can see what other options I could have gotten.”
02
75% wanted clearer Music Maps
Simplifying the visuals and adding interactive states made Music Maps easier to interpret, reducing confusion and making the data feel more intuitive.
“it is hard for me to understand if these are real users, artists, or celebrities”
03
60% said some elements didn’t feel interactive
Consistent styling was introduced across screens, using borders and gradient backgrounds to clearly signal which elements were clickable.
“Oh, I wasn’t sure that I could click on that.”
Balancing business and user needs:
Every design decision had to consider feasibility and long-term value.
Collaboration with mentors:
Feedback from Amazon Music mentors pushed our concepts to be more practical.
Visual storytelling matters:
Custom illustrations and motion design left a strong impression, showing how small details elevate the overall experience.
