Playlists, Bandcamp 2025

Role

Led end-to-end product design, research, and handoff across web and apps

Team

Cross-functional partnership between Design, Product, Engineering, Artists & Label Reps and Marketing.

Timeframe

Jan-June 2025

Mobile playlist view with track details surfaced in the expanded player bottom sheet, adapting the desktop layout for smaller screens.

Problem/Opportunity

Industry expectation vs Bandcamp identity
Streaming norms position playlists as passive listening. I redesigned them as active support, foregrounding artist context and purchase at every track.
Ownership constraint as differentiation
Users can only create playlists from tracks they’ve purchased. We turned this constraint into differentiation, making every playlist proof of real artist support.

Support Cases — Working closely with Support, I turn ticket data into patterns and insights that shape product direction.

Key Research Insight

Insights from the Playlist Discovery Study (view research deck ↗) shaped the goals below. Users described algorithmic playlists as passive and impersonal, they wanted more context and human expression.

Opportunity: Make discovery explicitly human-led.

It’s like eating a lot of junk food (Spotify playlists) takes away the discovery process for me… I like to know what someone else thinks about that song. There has to be an element of critical thinking.

“Crate Digger” persona - power users that make up 10% of buyers

Product Goals

Encourage deeper exploration of an artist or albun beyond single tracks
Create a new discovery surface grounded in ownership
Support meaningful sharing between fans

Design Principles

Playlists should feel curated, not algorithmic
Artist context and purchase options remain visible
Avoid turning Bandcamp into a passive listening feed

Process Highlights

Researched the landscape of playlist experiences and developed behavioural personas to define opportunities and align with Product on success metrics.

Behavioural personas: Crate Digger, Proud Bandcamper, Curious, Future User — Starting from Bandcamp's 4 spend-based segments, I developed behavioural personas tailored to playlist behaviours.

Mentored a junior designer and defined the design strategy. We ran design sprints to turn insights into concepts and the v1 scope.

Playlists FigJam — Cross-functional design sprint with Product and Engineering to define the v1 scope.

Worked with Product on a phased rollout of playlists, starting with an MVP and expanding features over time. Aligned with Marketing on a soft-launch plan, using early engagement data to inform iteration and prepare for a larger campaign.

Exploration Sketches

Low-fidelity concepts exploring different ways playlists could work and feel.

Track Spotlight - 2 modes of tracklist — **Track Spotlight** - Curator commentary appears in a dedicated “Spotlight” section separate from the tracklist.
Outcome: Ruled out as too dependent on rich UGC to feel compelling.

**Home Tapes** - Example from a template-based playlist concept tailored to different user stories.
Outcome: Paused waiting to understand real playlist behaviours before defining templates.

**Vinyl Metaphor** - A full-screen, immersive player focused on the currently playing track.
Outcome: Ruled out, genre-specific visual language.

**Sticker Board** - Another playful fan feedback via stickers instead of likes or comments.
Outcome: Deferred, better introduced after stronger feature adoption.

**Merch Table** - Fan interaction meets merch discovery in a spatial layout inspired by real-life gig merch tables.
Outcome: Deferred, better introduced after stronger feature adoption.

**Play Space** - A video-inspired playlist experience, animating content above the sticky player for immersion.
Outcome: Ruled out, added complexity without clear listening benefit.

**Skim and Dig** - Single-column editorial layout with expandable depth.
Outcome: Evolved to better balance depth and scanability, reducing page length and improving track overview.

Final Designs

By reframing the playlist as a digital liner-note journey, the design shifts discovery from passive consumption to intentional support of independent artists.

1. Strategic info hierarchy
De-emphasising the tracklist creates intentional friction, shifting focus from tracks to artist.

4. Discovery-to-support funnel
Placing merch alongside the music strengthens the tactile connection to the artist and shortens the path to purchase.

6. Sustained discovery loop
Related editorial content and playlists guide users to discover more.

2. Human-led:
Track Notes surface curator voice without competing with artist content and embedded directly into discovery.

3. Focused conversion path:
The primary CTA shifts intent from single tracks to full-album support.

5. Community-led validation:
Showing fan buyers and reviews turns transactions into community engagement while reinforcing artist support.

Impact

Metrics showing how launching playlists drive engagement, community participation, and artist support.

As of Jan 2026

2 X Spend among playlist creators

30% of users who create playlists now support artists more actively.

Almost half of playlist visits result in album exploration

41% of playlist views lead to a visit of the album page, increasing intentional engagement.

Fans are curating their own collections

38% of playlists have tracks wishlisted by other users, surfacing community-led discovery.

12% of playlist interactions lead to a purchase

Users shift from passive listening to active support of independent artists.

What's Next

A beta version has shipped with full feature updates planned for 2026.