Buttons in top right corner of windows desktop app have top margin

[WhoNeedsReasons]

Plan

Premium

Country

Germany

Device

different PCs

Operating System

Windows 10, Windows 11

My Question or Issue

The buttons in the top right corner are no longer at the top of the app. This is very annoying for me, as it makes it significantly more difficult to click. Previously I could just move my mouse all the way in the top right corner to close the app, now I have to pay attention and make sure I don't click in the empty space above the button.

As you can see in the screenshot, the red area is where I can click and above it is some empty black area that does nothing:

UX design-wise this seems like an awful choice because the corners of a desktop display offer essentially an endless clickable area because the user can just move their mouse in the general direction of the respective corner and always hit the element. Windows even specifically made it so that the mouse doesn't slide into a different monitor when you hit the corners (if multiple monitors are used). This way you can always hit the corners, without even looking at the screen.

This is used for the windows button (bottom left) or minimise all (bottom right) or commonly the close button (top right) in basically all windows applications (except full screen)

[WhoNeedsReasons]

Hey @Ed56,

Just heard back from the team!

It seems that this is actually expected behavior and is connected to the new desktop layout. We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on this!

Cheers.

[Ed56]

Plan

Premium

Device

Windows 10 Desktop

My Question or Issue

Hi,

I'm not sure if my Spotify client is bugged or if this is part of a new update, but the title bar at the top of my client is now positioned as shown in the attached image. The close, maximize, and minimize buttons are now offset, with an area above them that alters the clickable area.

If this is a glitch, could you please direct me to a fix? (I have already tried reinstalling). However, if this is intentional, please consider the following:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law

TLDR: Fitts's Law explains that the time to quickly and accurately hit a target (like the title bar buttons) depends on the distance and size of the target, with larger, closer targets being easier to click.

Placing elements like the title bar buttons in the corner of the screen makes the target "infinitely large" on two sides, eliminating concerns about overshooting with the cursor and significantly improving click accuracy and speed.

If this is a conscious change in design, please re-consider.

All the best.

[Dessi]

Hey @Ed56,

Thanks for reaching out and flagging this!

The search bar's position is part of the new desktop layout our tech folks are working on. Thanks for the feedback!

As for the minimize, maximize and close buttons, we've reported this to our tech team, so that they can have a closer look and investigate this further. We'll let you know as soon as we get an update!

Take care.

[Dessi]

Hey @Ed56,

Just heard back from the team!

It seems that this is actually expected behavior and is connected to the new desktop layout. We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on this!

Cheers.

[MateusM]

Hi there! Thanks for your feedback! 🌟

It sounds like you’ve noticed a recent change Spotify has made. We’re always testing out possible improvements for our app and content. I’ll make sure to pass your feedback along to the right team.

Hope this clears things up.
/Mateus

[Jdbcyonl]

I too noticed this in the latest version of the Windows desktop client (1.2.47). It is extremely annoying, and seems like something that should have been caught before this version was pushed out to production. Please ensure that it is fixed promptly.

And MateusM - you chose the wrong prewritten response. The OP is talking about a bug, not an "improvement" or design change.

[ShorT66]

Please fix this bug. this is very annoying!

[KoweK]

Looks like I'm not the only one who hate this. Who tf designed this? Spotify is THE ONLY software that have this space between edge of screen and closing button. I even spent some time to find software which has something like that and I couldn't find anything. Nobody who's got more than two digits on IQ scale doesn't do this. Fix it.

[SimplisticSPFY]

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Windows even specifically made it so that the mouse doesn't slide into a different monitor when you hit the corners (if multiple monitors are used). This way you can always hit the corners, without even looking at the screen.

This is used for the windows button (bottom left) or minimise all (bottom right) or commonly the close button (top right) in basically all windows applications (except full screen)

---

As the original user said. There's no other program on earth that does this. I find it funny though that 14 hours before you made this change I laughing at the fact that the buttons were more vertical than horizontal, but it was fixed in the worst possible way...

[Ginterdinger]

I experience the same, wierd layout. This is definetly not wanted.
It interupts workflows and makes the program annoying to use.

Your designers may have adjusted the center of the closing menu, without adjusting the size.
The buttons are supposed to fill to the top of the window. The height of these buttons is an adjustable setting, as you can easily observe when you opening different apps (like Browsers, Edge/Firefox/etc.) and comparing the sizes of the clickable areas - you will see that they can have different sizes.

Please report this as a bug back to your software department.
I am sure they will find a quick fix for this. 🙂