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.

[ShorT66]

They are not listening....it's been months and i'm at that point where youtube music it better...........

[SimplisticSPFY]

Can you stop spamming my email please.

[air102020]

This change isn't innovative or clever. It's annoying. Please fix it.

[ShorT66]

https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/comments/jyp947/you_can_revert_back_to_previous_desktop_versions/
The fix - OP wants me banned though because i try to help others - too many replies or something

[eetuuuh]

"EXPECTED behaviour"... Excuse me??? This is horrible, there is absolutely no reason to do this, and it's against all Windows GUI design guidelines. The "X" is in the corner for a reason: easy access.

Imagine if some car manufacturer designed a car that can only be changed to reverse gear from the backseat!

[sppotifysucks10]

You are the problem. 

[Aisgbnok]

---

---

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@Dessi wrote:

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.

---

Hey, can you please tell the team that this is bad layout and goes against Windows spec. No other mainstream app (webapp/CEF like Spotify or not) places a space between the caption buttons. (Chrome, Apple Music, Figma, Slack, VSCode, etc.)  This "expected behavior" causes accessibility problems as many have complained about in this thread.

Caption controls (minimize, maximize, restore, close)

If you create your own caption buttons for your app, follow these guidelines to match the system caption buttons.

...

• Caption buttons have full bleed backplates.

---

 

https://learn.microsoft.com/windows/apps/design/basics/titlebar-design#caption-controls-minimize-max...

It is very frustrating trying to close the Spotify app after this change, it significantly reduces my user experience. Thank you.

Spotify for Windows (64 bit)
1.2.51.345.gcc39d911

[user-removed]

Is this a new strategy to keep users hooked? A subtle way to say, 'Don't you dare close this window!'? Please prioritize user experience over manipulative design tactics.

Just kidding, but seriously, the previous layout was more intuitive for quickly closing the app. 💚

[furinkan]

You're fuggen kidding me, right? I appreciate that you've followed this up, it's the tech team's explanation beggars belief. This is a UI bug that breaks decades of computer GUI design principles, it's hard to overstate how much of a **bleep**-up this is. The top area doesn't need to be any bigger, but those buttons MUST go all the way to the top of the window, even if it's not indicated visually.

Lemme reiterate: this is a bug, it is a regression. It used to work properly and now it does not.

Fixing this costs pretty much nothing - you make the buttons taller and there is no compromise needed, no juggling of UI elements to make everything fit beautifully. Not fixing this has a real cost. If this wastes just 1 second of every one of your users' time, every day, you're racking up cumulative months or years of useless wasted time, each and every single day.

It looks like you've vertically-centered the buttons in the top bar. If it bothers you that it'd be weird to extend the button only upwards then fine, have it vertically-fill the top bar. It's fine if it extends down towards the right-sidebar as well.

[greenwizard88]

I swear every time I sit down at my desk to get work done, I end up performing a "15 minutes of hate" ritual instead. It's directed at Spotify and their buttons. If I wanted floating buttons that violate Fitt's law, I would use macOS!

[sidekiksidekick]

FIX THIS! wtffffff

[Tazhel]

There is nothing to think about, I understand your "UX" designer thinks it sounded smart that we don't close to tray and don't get all spotify comercials in our face, like "Look at this new artist, we earn more if you look at this. But that is not UX design, expected behaviour is a good example of, hey let's do like MSN did, let Discord steal all of the users while we push comercial and force users to now be able to close the application.

Do you understand this is ur pitfal? You do understand that 99% of users don't take the time writting messages like we do, they just switch, to apple music or youtube. All of us who sounds bitter and angry are only trying to save your company, we love swedan and want them to succeed. So please, call up the "UX" team and show them this message, or let them contact me in person. They would learn alot, and maybe testers and developers should dear to speak up against "UX" designers who learned some tricks at school.

[Setolo]

Tell the team to fix this. It is not a good design choice. It lowers the speed to which I can access the buttons when the app is maximized. Muscle memory for all applications is to move my mouse to the top right of the window to close it, and it's always been this way since the beginning of Spotify as well. I would prefer it to stay that way.

I've been a premium member for over 10 years and I'm suddenly experiencing a bunch of bugs and issues out of nowhere which is getting frustrating. I would really appreciate it if this could be resolved.

[Crizo]

It solves nothing.  Nobody asked for this.  It's not like it looks cool or makes me like Spotify more, it's simply obnoxious design.

Mouse > Most Top Right Corner > Click > Close Program.  We've all been doing this for decades, you are not special.

[KoweK]

Still broken. Dear Spotify, send this tutorial to your designers https://learn.microsoft.com/pl-pl/windows/apps/design/basics/titlebar-design#caption-controls-minimi...

[sam_123]

There's a black bar above my Window Control (The Close, Maximize, and Minimize) buttons.
It appeared few months back and it's a small inconvenience and is pissing me off.
I've tried, signing-out and back in, reinstalling, clearing cache.
What else can I do?
(image linked below)
https://imgur.com/a/LCqYwv1

[KoweK]

Something similar was in old Photoshop but you know what? When you hover your mouse above of arena of these buttons they are still active - so you can go with your coursor to top right corner with closed eyes and close button will be active even if cursor visually is not directly on "X". Is it too diffucult for your "engineers"?

[sidekiksidekick]

What the **bleep** is wrong with you people? Why are you torturing us like this? This is beyond frustrating and borderline sadistic! Fix your **bleep** already!

[nicoaleramirez]

This is still broken, please fix it.

(It can't be an "expected behavior", it's against Windows GUI design guidelines)

[arush_bhimwal]

I think that the UI on the desktop version is a bit glitchy the alignment of buttons is not proper, and the 3dot and go back Icon are to close the close minimize button don't touch the top end for some reason