Spotify for Runners
PRODUCT CONCEPT
UI/UX, app design
Designed as an integrated Spotify experience, Spotify for Runners combines music streaming with fitness intelligence. The product leverages pace, heart rate, and location to create a running experience that adapts in real time.
Designing a music experience that adapts to your run,
instead of the other way around.
Running has a rhythm the way music does.
But today's workout playlists are static and force runners to manually create playlists and search, skip, or curate songs while trying to stay in motion.
Spotify for Runners imagines a listening experience that lives within your existing library and understands pace, terrain, effort, and routine; while building the right soundtrack in real time so runners stay focussed on the run, not the playlist.
Pain Points
Constantly skipping songs that don't match your pace
Building separate playlists for separate workouts
Losing rhythm when music energy suddenly changes
No adaptation based on terrain, elevation, fatigue
Generic workout playlists that ignore individual running habits
The Opportunity
A run is a lot like a song - it builds tension, reaches its climax, and releases it. You warm up, settle a rhythm, push harder, sprint a final stretch, and slow down to recover.
Spotify already understands what music you listen to. What it doesn't understand yet is how the body moves while it listens to it. Here lies our gap between physical and musical momentum.
Design Principle
Input = movement.
Output = music.
Every product decision comes back to this idea.
So rather than replacing Spotify's recommendation engine, we build on top of it so the experience layers real-time running signals on top of existing listening behaviour.
Experience Flow
Movement → Context → Music.
Track 01
Learning Familiar Routes
Every repeated route becomes an anticipated rhythm.
Track 02
Data-based Pace Zones
Naturally move through different intensity phases.
Track 03
Real-time BPM Sync
Every step finds its perfect tempo.
Track 04
Post-Run Intelligence
Smarter after every run.
Track 05
Natural Language to Adaptive Playlists
A conversational prompt creates the perfect soundtrack.
Design System
Keeping Spotify's visual language intact, but adjusting it to prioritize glanceability over interaction. Everything is designed around moments when users are in motion, not sitting and browsing, or in commute.
Rather than overwhelming runners with controls, every screen asks:
Can this be understood in under two seconds?
Impact
Spotify for Runners reframes workout playlists as a living system. By combining movement data with Spotify's existing recommendation engine, the experience becomes more personal, more contextual and almost entirely hands-free.
The result goes way beyond just better music.
Sustained motivation
Music that becomes synced with the body
Stronger rhythm with fewer interruptions
Next Step: TESTING
Prototyping Feasibility
Pulling real-time pace, heart rate, and elevation data through Apple Watch, Fitbit, and Strava APIs to see how reliably Spotify could read a runner's movement without building new hardware.
One More Track: Taking the Product Further
Group Runs
Running clubs often struggle with music; everyone wants something different, and coordinating playlists during a run is nearly impossible.
Spotify Jam becomes movement-aware.
A designated run leader can make quick voice prompts - "Let's pick up the pace", "Final kilometre", "Time for recovery" - and Spotify Jam adjusts playback for everyone at once, in sync.
Initial Ideation
Let’s get in touch!