Today a friend of mine posted an image on Facebook that showed the “snowfall feature” in the Spotify app. When you open the Android app (IOS does not have this feature) it instantly makes you feel a little festive. The animation of glowing white snow falling down your screen is only temporary; which makes it more relevant (it cannot be disabled manually). It is designed as a nice and non-intrusive add-on and it does not interfere with interaction within the app. The feature is only applied on the “Now Playing Screen”; when you navigate the menu’s or search a song the snow is gone.
You could argue that is’t distracting, or maybe even pointless, because when you listen to music on your smartphone you’re probably not watching the screen. I say it’s a fun and simple Easter egg that puts a smile on my face. Well done Spotify!
Last year Google did something similar by adding a “shake to snow-effect” in their Google Photo’s app. You could simply shake your device to add falling snow to any open image and save it as an animated gif.
When thinking of dynamic implementation, “Time” is the relevant context here. Features like this makes most people smile, are relatively easy to implement and they might draw some extra attention to your product. Therefore I think it’s a smart dynamic addition.
Happy Holidays!