Spotify, the music streaming service, looked deeper into the strange listening data that was coming out of its platform across the US, Brazil and Indonesia  at the beginning of the pandemic and came up with lessons about how to understand users at a time of high stress.

Why it matters

Spotify and research agency Sparkler overcame the limitations of remote working in generating qualitative insights by allowing the research process to become more open-ended and participant led. The process revealed how the role of the streaming embraced responsibility as well as entertainment.

Takeaways

• Long (six month) studies can still yield...