@Spotify mods:
I recently became a paying customer of Spotify (more because of my kids). About my background: I've been a usabitlity expert (software and hardware) for over 20 years and have worked for some really big global companies. I really need to comment on this thread now. Warning, long...
About my user experience with Spotify's "curated" lists:
- At first I was excited about a particular 11 hour list that had a lot of songs that I was really looking forward to.
- Then, at a certain point, I thought to myself, "you already heard that yesterday," but at first assumed that there were songs in the list multiple times.
- At some point I noticed that the order in the list was constantly changing. At this point I didn't feel like analyzing the logic behind it anymore. Surely this must be a bug...
- I then checked if a random mode is active somewhere. First I made sure that the random icon was not active, which was not the case, so I searched the settings a few times for any function that could trigger this behavior. That wasn't the case either, and my annoyance grew. Someone is stealing my time here.
- It became clear that some tracks I was looking forward to probably wouldn't be heard for another 4 weeks, or more likely never, but other junk in that time probably 10 times.
- Then I came across this article on the net, which was really easy to find.
In short... something like this drives me crazy, both as a "normal" user and as a professional. Why isn't the function put on the random button, which is literally screaming for it??
Such software behavior is as unintelligent as a pound of mincemeat. The only way to hear the songs you want would be to copy them to your own list and then listen to that? What??
Unbelievable, but what's going on here completely misses the user wishes and then to advertise this as a "feature" is unfortunately a behavior that you often encounter when you either can't get the problem under control, or it simply has no priority in the tickets of either the product management or the development teams, which just confirms ignorance. I really had to laugh because this is something I know so well from my own experience in big companies. Doesn't anyone in your company fight for the users? This is disappointing!
Just the fact that the thread spans 3 full long years (feels like 30 in internet time) shows that users don't want this Spotify "feature" in this form... just understand that. And the fact that there have been no solutions to this for 3 years shows that you are simply ignoring user requests at this point. Sorry, I'm sure you're nice people, but that's how it comes across in the outside perception.
I can't believe that Spotify as a global player has to be given usabitity (and customer care) tips, but here are a few for free and I'm sure that you know them all very well:
- Follow the universal usability rule "Don't make me think"
- Listen very carefully to customer requests and complaints and align your actions accordingly
- Don't annoy the customer with features that she/he neither wants nor really understands the sense of
- Never confront the user with undocumented features that are not self-explanatory
- Make features that are not desired by a clear majority of users, but are still considered necessary in some sort of strange way, optional. In other words, put an option into the settings to customize the behavior of the software (I can't believe I'm writing this in 2023).
- Don't leave well-intentioned features completely to algorithms and immature attempts with AI. I guess that is the real problem and also the reason why there is no solution offered. Too complex code and too much effort to improve it.
Okay, my 5 ct. ... take it or leave it, I will keep it the same with my status as Spotify customer. When I want to listen to the radio (and that's rarely the case), with no control over what I'm going to hear, I turn that on.
See this as a humble attempt on my part to fight for the time and nerves of your users.
Staff / Moderator/ 2 years ago in Social & Random