The Way You Listen to Music: Effect of Swiping Direction and Album Arts on Adoption of Music Streaming Application

Digital music is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and online streaming is the significant contributor to this revenue pie. Major streaming service providers, e.g. Spotify, Apple music, Deezer etc. are operating with the almost same number of songs and price propositions. With all these options available, which one is better to choose when there is no price differentiation? This study investigates how to bring differentiation that will increase the likelihood of adoption of music streaming applications through delivering user-centric experiential design to consumers with two features, swiping direction and album arts. Specifically, this research examines whether swiping direction affects adoption and also investigates the combination of album arts and swiping direction that is fluent to process and increase the likelihood of adoption. We built our hypotheses upon the theory of processing fluency and formulated the proposition that atypical design is fluent comparing to typical design for adoption. Two online experimental studies and a field study were adopted. Across all the three studies, the results revealed support for atypical design that increases the likelihood of adoption of music streaming applications. Our findings have implications for streaming providers to differentiate their products through atypical experiential design elements that increase both usability and adoption.