SiriusXM Thumbs Up Radio
Overview
As SiriusXM expanded its in-car entertainment following the merger with Pandora, personalization became a key focus. The team looked to adapt Pandora’s popular Thumbprint Radio concept into the SiriusXM automotive experience, giving drivers a more tailored way to listen to their liked content.
Role:
Lead Product Designer
Timeline:
10 Months / 2024-2025
Tools:
Figma
Team:
PM, Product, Streaming, Engineers, Research
Problem
While users could thumb up songs in the car, there was no way to revisit those liked tracks or enjoy a station built around them. The lack of clear feedback on thumbs interactivity left listeners uncertain about its behavior, reducing engagement and limiting personalization opportunities.
Solution
We introduced a dynamic Thumbs Up Radio station, renaming Pandora’s Thumbprint Radio for clearer context, within the SiriusXM automotive app. The station combines thumbed-up songs with new recommendations, while onboarding and confirmation messages clarify thumbs functionality. These features made the experience intuitive, transparent, and engaging.
Discovery
Research Summary
The design process began with in-depth user research to understand the needs and challenges of individuals looking for personalized music to listen to. This involved interviews, affinity mapping, and competitive/comparative analysis to gather insights into their thumbing habits and preferences.
User Interviews
The researcher conducted 8 moderated online interviews via UserTesting. We spoke to 4 frequent SiriusXM users and 4 non-SiriusXM users.
Quote: “I thumb up songs all the time, but then what?”
Quote: “In the car, I can’t go digging through menus.”
Quote: “I want a station that just knows what I like.”
Research Findings
Most participants understood thumbing would personalize their SiriusXM experience
Many expected thumbed songs to be saved and accessible
About half correctly expected it to play a mix of liked songs and similar songs
Participants appreciated messaging like "inspired by your likes" for clarifying content type
Entity page largely met expectations and felt personalized
“Thumbs Up Radio” and “Liked Songs Radio” were clear and literal naming preferences
Most participants expected thumbs down to skip songs
Participants appreciated that thumbing down showed content pivots in the sidebar
Safety & Compliance
Must adhere to NHTSA guidelines (e.g., < 2-second glance time)
Prioritize voice-first design
Minimize cognitive load
Affinity Mapping Snapshot
The team conducted an affinity mapping exercise to make sense of large amounts of unstructured data gathered from research. By clustering related observations into thematic groups, we were able to uncover patterns, insights, and connections that weren’t immediately obvious. This process not only clarified user needs but also highlighted opportunities to guide design decisions with greater focus and alignment.
User & Business Goals
The team determined the user and business goals by understanding the business's overall objectives through stakeholder interviews and data analysis, then conduct user research (surveys, interviews) to uncover user needs and pain points. Then, I defined the design goals that align with both the business's strategic priorities and the user's functional needs, identifying areas of overlap and potential trade-offs to prioritize features that deliver value to both.
User Goals | Business Goals | Design Goals |
|---|---|---|
Replay songs they’ve thumbed up | Increase daily listening time | Make it safe and effortless to launch in the car |
Discover more of what they love | Drive personalization engagement | Balance familiarity with discoverability |
Avoid complex in-car interactions | Improve retention & satisfaction | Use consistent, low-cognitive-load UI patterns |
Understand why a song is playing | Encourage more thumbs for better data | Design contextual feedback (e.g., “You liked this”) |
Use voice or steering wheel controls | Position SiriusXM as a personalized platform | Enable multi-modal access: voice, tap, touch |
Ideation
Wireflows
To structure the podcast feature in the SiriusXM automotive app, I developed a comprehensive wireframes shown as a flow charts. Collaborating closely with my team, we ensured each section accurately represented the client's objectives and content placement.
After finalizing the wireframe, I developed high-fidelity screens, adding more visual details and refining the overall design. By transitioning from wireframes to high-fidelity screens, we were able to finalize the design and incorporate visual elements that enhanced the overall aesthetics and usability of the application.
This step-by-step process enabled us to create a cohesive and visually captivating design that effectively conveyed SiriusXM's key information and objectives on their 360L automotive app.
Thumbs Up Radio Access Points
When a user taps the Thumbs Up Radio tile from an entry point, the system will navigate to the Thumbs Up Radio entity page, where the station can be played.
Onboarding & Confirmation
When a user likes a song for the first time, an onboarding modal will be presented that will give clear context around the thumbs up and thumbs down functionality. After first time use, the user will be presented with a confirmation message when liking a song.
Station Created
Once the thumbing criteria has been met (4 likes across 3 different channels), a confirmation message will appear in the sidebar, informing the listener that their station has been created. The user can choose to listen now, or go to the station entity page.
Thumbs Down
When a user dislikes a song and taps the Thumbs Down control, it will skip to the next song. When the skip limit (6 skips) is reached, the user will be presented with more options in the side panel. These options will also appear after 3 skips to inform the user that they have 3 skips remaining.
Design
I designed the Thumbs Up Radio feature within SiriusXM's 360L Automotive app, by applying and updating the internal design system to align with the company’s style guide and brand platform. By refining typography, color, imagery, and layout, we created a cohesive look and feel that extended across the experience. These designs provided a strong foundation for stakeholder feedback and iteration, ensuring a polished, user-friendly solution that elevated SiriusXM’s liked songs feature and in-vehicle experience.
Thumbs Up Radio Entity Page
Based on the research findings, I focused on designing a new, voice and tap activated station that plays:
Songs the user has thumbed up
Songs inspired by those thumbs (similar genres, moods, artists)
Always updating. Zero setup. Just like the driver, it gets better with time.
The Thumbs Up Radio entity page will appear in favorites, once the user has reached the thumbing criteria. Research suggested placing the liked songs below the fold, because users prefer to view and manage their songs in the companion app to avoid driver distraction. Recommendations based on the user's likes appear above the fold to increase discoverability.
High-Fidelity Clickable Prototype
Tap on the image to view and interact with the Figma prototype for the Thumbs flow. In your web browser, change your view size to "Fill screen."
Outcomes
Expected Outcomes
While the Liked Songs Station has not yet launched, our testing and early validation indicate strong potential impact:
90% of test users successfully launched the station in under 2 steps
100% understood how the station worked and what was playing
85% said it made them more likely to use the thumbs feature going forward
Projected business impact (based on research + prototype testing):
+20–30% increase in average listening session length
+40% increase in thumb interactions
Significant lift in voice command usage
