Designing the Liked Songs Station for SiriusXM
Overview
As SiriusXM continues to evolve its in-car entertainment experience, personalization remains a key driver of engagement and retention. While users can thumb up songs in the car, there was no unified way to revisit those liked tracks or enjoy a station built around them. There is also no feedback for thumbs interactivity, leaving listeners unsure about its behavior, resulting in less engagement.
Goal: Create a dynamic "Liked Songs Station" in the SiriusXM automotive app that plays songs the user has thumbed up, along with new music inspired by those selections, bridging familiarity and discovery. Provide onboarding and confirmation messages to give clear context about thumb functionality.
Role:
Lead Product Designer
Timeline:
10 Months / 2024-2025
Tools:
Figma
Team:
PM, Product, Streaming, Engineers, Research
Research & Discovery
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. These are the insights:
“I thumb up songs all the time, but then what?”
“In the car, I can’t go digging through menus.”
“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
User & Business Goals
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 |
Design Solution: Thumbs Up Radio
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.
User Flows
Entry Points Flow
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 Flow
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 Flow
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 Flow
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.
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."
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
