Music that knows you—and connects you.
A social listening ecosystem where music connects people across the globe through shared moods, life moments, and real-time discoveries.
The design challenge
How might amazon music develop global experiences that create new ways for creators and listeners across all content types to engage with the product?
Rank
Top 15 / 54 teams
Host
Amazon Music x UC Berekely
Timeline
Designathon (7 hours)
Team
Vrushti Desai (me)
Hribhav Panchal, Ishtinarah Quazi,
Joshua Wee, Niko Fuertez
My role
Design Lead
UX Designer, UX Researcher
Music listeners don't feel emotionally or culturally connected through their music experience.
As Amazon Music expands globally, users crave content that reflects their current mood, context, and cultural identity. However, existing platforms often miss these emotional or situational cues—delivering generic recommendations that fail to resonate. This lack of contextual intelligence leads to missed opportunities for engagement, discovery, and community building.
USER PROBLEM
DERIVED PROBLEM STATEMENT
transform music listening from a solo experience into a shared, global moment of connection and discovery?
How might we
Amazon Music Loops recommends content based on your mood, calendar, or activity—and lets you instantly share it with global communities, friends, and creators, creating cultural bridges through audio.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
Reimagining Music as a Shared Experience
Join real-time music sessions hosted by artists or fans—bringing the concert vibe to your screen.
Discover and follow fan pages based on your favorite artists and personality—get content that feels made for you
Trade playlists anonymously with global fans, matched by taste and favorite artists—discover music through connection.
Amazon Music Loops turns solo listening into a shared global experience—connecting people through live sessions, fan pages, and anonymous playlist swaps.
DESIGN PROCESS
How did we come to the solution?
EMPATHIZE & DEFINE
We conducted surveys as our first step to understand how young global users—mostly students and working professionals—interact with music during their everyday live
Quick Statistics From 45 Respondents
RESEARCH & VALIDATE
Research Survey Bring Many Inspiring Insights About Their Needs
“I usually just put on something random but it doesn’t always match how I’m feeling.”
“I want music that gets me, not just what I listened to last week.”
“It’s more fun when I discover songs through people with similar vibes or moods.”
...That’s how we honed in on our project focus: building emotionally aware, socially driven music experiences that feel timely, personal, and globally connected.
We also made a quick competitor analysis to examine how similar products work
Most music platforms treat listening as a solo activity, missing the chance to create emotionally aware, real-time social experiences. Our solution bridges that gap by making music personal, contextual, and globally connected through mood-based communities and fan–creator interaction.
What is our opportunity?
We explored ways to create global connection through music, such as emotion-based circles—a feature that lets users join shared listening spaces based on mood, location, artists or activity, with smart recommendations powering social discovery.
Then, we started to utilize the findings to ideate!
CONCEPT IDEATION
Our second attempt to revise the concept:
We evolved the concept to highlight community and personalization through Amazon Music Playground—a gamified space where users build avatars, earn artist stickers, complete music challenges, and connect with fans and creators through short-form content and virtual events.
RAPID PROTOTYPING
By addressing the gaps we uncovered and building on our research insights, we recognized that integrating emotion-aware music suggestions with a sense of human connection could greatly elevate the Amazon Music experience—making it feel more personal, timely, and relevant.
Additionally, our features like avatar-based profiles, mood-driven listening Circles, and artist interaction rewards aim to deepen engagement by blending social discovery with self-expression, turning passive listening into a vibrant, shared journey.
Key Features
Core Value Proposition
How our concept—Amazon Music Loop& Playground—sits at the intersection of community, emotional context, and smart personalization within the Amazon Music ecosystem to deliver a socially connected, mood-aware listening experience.
Crafting our Design solutions
01 Live Session
This feature allows users to join real-time music sessions hosted by artists or fans—discovered through the new Loop tab integrated into their personalized library. Inside a session, users can react with emojis, comment live, and engage with fan badges, creating an immersive, shared listening experience.
02 Anonymous Playlist Swap
This added feature lets users trade playlists anonymously with global fans, matched by shared artist preferences. Users can browse sent and received playlists, preview tracks, and connect through light messaging—turning music discovery into a subtle social exchange.
03 Fan Pages & Personalized Profiles
This flow highlights how users can build expressive profiles and discover fan communities aligned with their favorite artists and personality type. From customizing their avatar to browsing fan pages and joining suggested communities, the experience is designed to deepen user identity and music-based belonging.
We pitched Amazon Music Loops to judges and mentors from Amazon, and were selected as one of the Top 15 teams out of 54 to present.
DELIVER
REFLECTION
What I learnt from this designathon
We initially struggled to narrow our focus as a team—our ideas were too broad. Defining a clear, scalable concept for Amazon Music's global audience was tough, especially under time pressure. We resolved this by identifying one core user pain point and designing features—like playlist swaps and fan pages—that could drive engagement, retention, and cross-platform differentiation.
Challenges we faced..
Next time, I’d start with clearer timeboxing and alignment on team roles early in the sprint. Working under pressure made it tempting to skip some structured decision-making. I'd also define a sharper MVP earlier, to avoid chasing too many directions and leave more time for refining the core interaction.
What would I do differently?