“Hey, Siri! Play some music.”

Should Apple decide what is a universally accepted kind of music?

Photo by Omid Armin on Unsplash

The other day, I was ironing some clothes, and, since my hands were busy, I told Siri, Apple’s voice assistant:

“Hey, Siri! Play some music from Spotify.”

At my surprise, Siri didn’t start one of my usual playlists (which is what I expected to happen).

No. It started a playlist called “Jazz in the Background”.

As a UX Designer, this got me really curious.

“Why did Siri start a jazz playlist?”, I asked.

“Is it a random coincidence? Or is this the result of a design choice?”.

“Could it be that” I finally realised “someone at Apple (or Spotify!) decided that, when a user asks for an unspecified background music, the device should play some… jazz?!”.

I wanted to test my hypothesis in the most rigorous way, so… I told this story to my wife, asking her to try it.

Now, it’s true she got a different playlist (“Soft Jazz”), but, once again, jazz is what started playing.

“A-ha!”. I thought.

“There is a pattern!”. And wondered:

“Could it really be that someone assumed jazz is always the answer?”.

Don’t get me wrong. I love jazz (especially, the style called “Cool Jazz”).

But, isn’t it curious that some designer decided for me what kind of music should play in the background? Is jazz a legitimate assumption?

Why didn’t they design Siri differently?

For instance, so that it would ask us if we have any preferences?

This shows how much responsibility we have as designers. We decide what people will experience. And we know there is a trade-off between speed of use and the amount of options that users have.

I believe that, whenever possible, we should give users the choice to decide for themselves. Maybe, in this case, the designer preferred to prioritize speed. Who knows. But it’s intriguing!

Try it yourself, and see the results.

Did you too got jazz?

Actually, please, let me know how it goes (you can send me an email at hello@giacomopodda.com).