Improving User Retention on Amazon Music through Emotional Engagement
In February 2025, Amazon collaborated with Pratt Institute School of Information organized a 1 month design challenge to reimagine Amazon Music’s Future for Amazon Music.
My Role
As a Product Designer, I collaborated with a team of 3 UX/UI designers to revamp Age Brilliantly’s website user experience. Through collaborative efforts, we identified the cause of low conversions. Utilizing research data and insights, I implemented design iterations that optimized the sign up and onboarding experience.
Team
3 UX Designers/Researchers (including me)
Discipline
Product Design, UX Design
Time Frame
1 month
🔍 The Challenge
Amazon Music is seeking a Customer Experience (CX) strategy to improve retention across its tiered offerings. The goal is to create a differentiating product that engages users, keeps them active month-over-month, and makes Amazon Music indispensable in their daily lives.
🎯 Our Strategy: Fan-First Retention
Our strategy is centered around turning emotional incentives into a Hook Model–driven loop—where casual listeners are nudged toward deeper discovery and connection, and super fans are empowered to show off their passion and be recognized.
The Solution
Meet EchoSoul! A reimagination of Amazon Music as an engaging community based ecosystem that let listeners discover new music, capture memorable moments, and display their musical identity! 🎉
Discover and share the stories behind the music
Expanded X-Ray (Amazon Music's original feature) to a space people can share stories behind the music. Driven by our research showing that people crave deeper context and community.
Capture the music listening journey
Research showed music evokes powerful nostalgia and memories making the music listening experience more engaging. The memory journal is a personal diary for relieving and reflecting on meaningful moments over time.
Showcase musical identity by decorating artists-related stickers
With people craving personal expression and social connection, Stickers let fans display their musical milestones and favorite artists, transforming passive listening into community engagement.
How did we get here? 👇
Research
Our first question: Why people are leaving Amazon Music?
Method: Analyzed 586 Reddit comments about Amazon Music.
Insight: Users often felt the UI outdated and struggled to find features, while others said recommendations didn’t match their taste.
Amazon Music struggles most during activation (Day 1–7) when users are confused, and during early engagement (Day 30) when they don’t see unique value.
Our Second question: What are people looking for when listening to music?
We want to further understand how people listen to music and what make them stay and leave the platform. So we send out survey and recruit music listeners to interview across all platform.
Strategic Direction
Our research revealed that what truly differentiates Amazon Music’s opportunity lies in designing for the emotional layers of music listening. Users want
Creating experiences that preserve personal memories, allow them to express their identity, and foster a sense of belonging within a community of fans and artists.
Focusing on At-Risk Audiences
From interviews and a 2×2 user matrix, we identified two churn-prone groups: casual listeners who drift due to low commitment, and dedicated fans loyal to artists but not Amazon.
✨ To understand them better, let's take a look at the personas of Casual Listeners vs. Super Fan
Casual Listeners tend to passively consume music without forming strong habits, whereas Super Fans seek deeper artist connections and community features.
Problem Statement
Amazon Music’s current experience struggles to retain users because it short in fostering emotional connections—Casual Listeners feel disconnected, and Super Fans lack a space to truly express and share their passion.
This begged the questions of:
How might we help Casual Listeners feel personally connected to their music?
How might we help Super Fans express their identity and feel seen?
Design
Expanding X-Ray
We began by looking at Amazon Music’s existing structure to find natural entry points for new features. Instead of replacing what was already there, our aim was to extend the experience in a way that felt seamless to users and built on Amazon Music’s strengths.
Originally launched on Prime Video, X-Ray brings extra context—like trivia and behind-the-scenes details—to what people watch. In Amazon Music, it mostly shows lyrics and song info. We saw an opportunity to evolve it into something bigger: a community-driven space where listeners could share stories, uncover fun facts, and build deeper connections with the music they love.
🦅 Let's take a quick bird's eye view of our Mid-fi screens
Testing
What Users Think
Final Prototype
🥁 Ready to hit the rhythm? Click on the right portfolio to explore the features.
Learnings
Left to right: Youyuan, Mengqi (me), Se One Park (Our mentor), Youlu
01 Balancing ambition with scope
Trying to design a full ecosystem of solutions in just one month taught me how to prioritize impact, simplify ideas, and balance ambition with feasibility.
02 Turning research into strategy
Synthesizing insights from Reddit, surveys, and interviews showed me the importance of moving beyond surface problems and framing a clear UX strategy that connects user needs with business goals.
04 Growing collaboration skills
Working in a fast-paced, cross-functional challenge sharpened my ability to present, persuade, and compromise—key skills for turning team ideas into a cohesive solution.
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