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Compatibility issue with Spotify .75.483.g7ff4a0dc and DisplayFusion Pro

Compatibility issue with Spotify .75.483.g7ff4a0dc and DisplayFusion Pro

I use DisplayFusion Pro v9.1 to provide multimonitor wallpaper and taskbar support as well as window management features. It is the latter of which that is posing a problem with the new layout of the re-designed Spotify.
One of the features DisplayFusion provides are a number of quick buttons that provide window management functionality [e.g. "move to next window", "move to bottom left window and size 50%"... etc] that it adds to the title bar of all programs just to the left of the minimise, maximise/restore, close buttons. Which was fine until you relocated the profile access right underneath them.
Given that you have removed the left top menu bar and replaced it with three space saving [but completely unintuitive] dots [My non-techy parents who use Spotify were baffled by these] I would request and recommend that you move the profile button over to the top left of the task bar instead of the top right. This should change no functionality but would solve the compatibility issue with DisplayFusion [and other similar useful apps].

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2 Replies

Do the stupid dots even save space? You could still easily fit a menu bar in that height. It's not like my 17" screen has a shortage of space anyway. Mobile design elements shouldn't be thoughtlessly applied to desktop programs.

At the very least the meaningless and unintuitive three dots could be replaced with a word [like "MENU \/" or "Settings \/" for example] with a down arrow to match the format of the profile access so that people like my parents who haven't grown up with computers and do not have the intuition that a series of dots might represent a menu access might have some clue where to go just by looking to find what they are looking for. The assumption that is taken for granted by people who design these systems that people will universally understand the symbols they use instead of words is deeply flawed. I volunteer to provide basic computer/gadget training to people and they are universally baffled by UI design and find it completely unintuitive.
My parents for example would be much happier if EVERY button in the UI had text on it telling you what it did. including the play/pause, skip, shuffle, repeat, etc because they are not even sure what they do without me telling them. And they only use the bare minimum they need to get by and will forget what they do if they don't use them for a while. Putting words on the UI that tell you what everything does and what your options are would make it a lot more user friendly for a lot of the people I work with. They do not do symbols.
Now this would upset a lot of regular users who like sleek shiny interfaces and know what all the symbols mean, which is why I think there should be a toggle option to switch between the two. Like providing support for people with colour blindness, there should be support for people who would like to use the technology and would benefit from it but who do not understand the language of modern UI design [and will never learn] and need actual words in the interface to tell them what things do. Even if that makes the UI designers upset because it doesn't look pretty. I/They don't care, because now they can actually use it, which is the point.

 

Anyone and everyone who designs anything should read "The design of Everyday Things" by Donald A. Norman. Regular people should read it too, so that they can realize that they are not stupid just because they have trouble operating badly designed systems.

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