Visualising Lyrics for Music Discovery : Understanding How Lyric-Based Playlist Covers Influence Music Browsing and User Experience

Sammanfattning

Music streaming platforms primarily organize music by genre, artist and algorithmic recommendations, leaving lyrical meaning underrepresented in browsing interfaces. This study explored how different visual representations of lyrical themes on playlist covers are interpreted and experienced by users during music browsing. A within-subject user study was conducted with 24 participants, combining think-aloud tasks, semi-structured interviews, Borda count and the User Experience Questionnaire Short Version (UEQ-S). During the study participants interacted with two prototypes. First prototype resembling lyrics based browsing interfaces including playlist covers using emoji-based, collage-based and font-based visualisations and another one resembling a standard music streaming interface. The findings show that emoji-based covers were most clear to interpret, however they were the least preferred when it came to visual style. On the other hand standard covers were described as familiar and efficient but generic. Collage-based covers scored highest on both user experience and preference. Across both interfaces, participants focused primarily on mood, genre, and tempo when browsing, rarely engaging with lyrical content directly. The results suggest that lyric-based visual browsing is not a full replacement for standard interfaces, but that collage-based covers in particular could complement existing designs by adding a more personal quality to playlist browsing.