Spotify: Boring wins

Boring design can be good.

Hi, I’m Felix! Welcome to this month’s ✨ free edition ✨ of ADPList’s Newsletter. I write high-quality insights on designing products people love and helping you reach your career goals faster. If you’re not a subscriber, here’s what you missed this month:

1. Guy Kawasaki: Why Some People Succeed, and Others Fail

2. Uber winning design

3. Design Career Ladder Cheatsheet

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Hi friends 👋,

What a week! Personal update: I’ve finally landed in San Francisco. 🇺🇸 If you are around, I will be at ADPList SF Bay Area Event next week, until the end of August. Come say hi!

Today’s post is special, as I’m working on a new short format.

This is a bite-size powerful study on real-world companies and products and some of the most important product lessons we can learn from them.

We’re starting with Spotify. ⤵️

Boring can be good.

I came across this mind-boggling experiment that Spotify ran.

Imagine you are a leader (design, product) at Spotfy, driving the success of their welcome page conversion rate.

One of your designers come back with two designs (A and B).

Which design did you think did better?

… drum roll… 🥁

The answer is Version A.

Now, the million-dollar question—why did the seemingly boring and plain-looking design eventually win?

As it turns out, there are two trending hypothesis on why this performed way better in converting users:

• Distracting users: adding illustrations and background videos to the sign-up screen can distract users from the CTAs, reducing the likelihood of them signing up

• Bandwidth and app size: additional elements like videos, illustrations, and animations can materially increase the app size, reducing the likelihood of users in countries with slower internet successfully downloading your app.

Conclusion: Try boring and functional designs for your next experiment on the sign-up flow. Don’t be clever, just be clear.

Question for you, why did you think Version A won?

Reply and let me know!

That’s all for this week’s post.

Have a productive and fulfilling week! 🙏

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I'll keep creating great stuff if you keep reading. Yes, I read and answer back to everyone if you reply to this email! :)

Until next week.

Felix Lee