Immagine sonora - traces in music listening behaviour by Media Design University of Applied Sciences

Immagine Sonora is a flexible visual system that maps temporal patterns in Spotify music streaming behaviours. It reveals when, throughout the year, people listen to music using real streaming data. While analysing the data gathered from my friends, I identified six distinct listening types: Gewohnheitstier (habitual listener), Taktloser (abrupt changes in their rhythm), Lückenhörer (fragmentary listener), Saisonhörer (seasonal listener), Morgenmelodiker (morning melodies) and Nachtwandler (shapeshifter).
By connecting these patterns to what I knew about their lives, I uncovered intriguing correlations—such as when they met their partners, studied abroad for a semester, or experienced other musical habits that are time-related.
The visualization represents a year as a sequence of days, with each day depicted as a rectangle divided into four color-coded time periods: morning, afternoon, evening, and night. The darker the colour the later in the day it is. The size of each segment is proportionate to the total minutes listened during that time of day. If no music was listened during a day, it remains black. Different listening types are distinguished through different colour combinations. One can see the passing of the years and switch between visualizations showing the year in weeks, months, quarters or all 365 days one below the other.