Spotify.. with a bit of simplicity and a missing music player
Whenever I think of why I use Spotify over any other music streaming service, it’s because of how user-friendly the service is and how accessible the app itself is. There is one thing that I wish Spotify would do down the road but since they have their API to use and access their music information, I decided to make a small project that made it more simple to access musicians, music, and playlists without there being a lot on the screen.
I know Spotify is super simple and even I said that it is very user-friendly but when I am searching for playlists or artists or even albums, I have to maybe search a bit longer than I should have to. My motivation for making this site is just that. I want to be able to search through playlists, artists, albums, and potentially more down the road, without having all the other unnecessary tabs and other misc. objects there are on the Spotify app. The way I was going to do this was by using Spotify’s API and it was amazing to work with. Learning new APIs is always a challenge in itself but with Spotify’s, the documentation was very thorough and easy to understand.
My biggest challenge with working on this site was getting the search field to correspond with each API call. Not only was that a pain but I wanted to try using redux with this project as I have just learned the benefits of using it and it wasn't the easiest thing to do but it's still a learning experience. Those were my biggest struggles with the project so far but I’m sure I will find more struggles on my way to expand down the road. Some smaller things that took a little bit of time were setting up my react-router and getting everything organized. Other than those though, I would say that everything was okay but getting comfortable with react and redux is just something that is going to take some time.
The way I overcame these challenges, especially with the search field, was watching some tutorials and reading some problems that other people have had that sound very similar to what I have. One of the sources I used to help understand it more was here. It was a very thorough explanation and not only did it help me get started with how I was going to use it in my project but also what I actually looking for since I didn't know how to word my question. Finding answers to questions is always easier and faster when you know what questions to ask.
While working on this idea, I really had to think about what I was really wanting from this project. I would be using Spotify’s API to make a product that is just a simpler version of it only to be used as a way to search for things. I then had to ask myself, “but then what?” I decided that I was going to route things straight back to Spotify once you found what you were looking for. Again, I asked myself, “but then what?” I then decided that before you start using this app, you might want to have an account that you can add those artists, albums, and playlist to once you found it because you don't want to use this app to find what you need then have to go to Spotify on your computer or your phone to search for the same thing. So now when you get to the site, it will have a link where you can make a Spotify account or sign in to the one you already have. I figured this would make for the most seamless and user-friendly way to make searching for things easier to not feel like a waste of time.
The way I decided to have the user interface once you have logged in or made an account is to be as simple as possible. That way you don’t have to maneuver your way through a bunch of things to find the simple things you need. It might seem like just a middle person in the broad scheme of things but I really see this as something that gives you a much easier way of searching for the music you want or even finding new music. I figured having one search bar to type whatever you were looking for then filtering with a button for your artists, albums, and playlists as of now. Eventually, there will be more but for 2 weeks' time and still working out a few kinks, it works pretty well.
Some of the features I plan to add in the future might be some things that don’t involve using the API. Such as maybe a recommendation feature for people to recommend playlists for a genre that other people might also be interested in. I would also like to more features using the API such as a song search or maybe even infographics on most played songs and most listened to artists for the month. I think being able to see those things will give a great visual representation of what's hot and what might be something you would be interested in. People love numbers to go with what's being listened to the most or what is popular in a genre that you really like. These features would be great and somewhat different than what Spotify itself offers in the sense that they have playlists for what's popular as this would be something for just visual representation with a bit more info.
All in all, I believe this project can be a cool tool to use if you struggle with searching through Spotify’s selection of music or if you can find it somewhat overwhelming like I do to find playlists and albums. Thank you, Spotify for providing a fun API to work with and I hope you get some use of this article. You can visit my WIP site at https://alexandershearer.github.io/spotify-music-search/ and test it for yourself. I hope you enjoy it!