New Desktop Experience - your feedback wanted!

[Hubo]

Spotify is testing a new way for you to connect with your music on Desktop. The new desktop experience features an all-new design, streamlined with the Spotify apps on all your devices. 

This is a brand-new experience and some parts are still being fine-tuned. Be sure to give feedback with the steps below to let the right folks know what you think could be improved.

The other Rock Stars and I got the chance to test the new desktop experience first and now more users will be able to test it out and give their feedback for the team. If you are a passionate Spotify user and would like to join the Rock Star Program and be part of cool experiences like this, then check out this help article.

How do I know if I’m using the New Desktop Experience?

The new desktop experience is not hard to spot with its new design! Your Library looks like this for example:

 

Why did the app change? 

This test is rolled out to a specific group of users at this moment. It’s not possible to sign up for this right now, but your interest is really appreciated. If you’re interested in testing out new versions of Spotify before everyone else, check this out: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Answers/How-do-I-become-a-Spotify-Beta-tester/ta-p/4551518. 

If you’re looking for more information about how tests work and about how features are released, take a look here: https://support.spotify.com/article/why-am-i-seeing-different-features-than-my-friends/.

How to give feedback?

This thread is your go-to destination for asking questions, getting help for issues you may have, as well as to share your impressions and feedback on this new desktop experience. 

Keep in mind that pictures can say a thousand words, so if you have any screenshots of something you’d like to share of your experience be sure to post them here as well! The right teams at Spotify take their time to read the posts in this thread and use your feedback to fine-tune this new experience for everyone.

[Sebasty]

@1crimson1 

Apt packages can be put on hold as well very easily, but snaps... It is possible, but people say it's quite ugly. Mostly not worth the trouble when you can use apt or flatpack.

[wocalax19]

Thank you so much terioncalling - PS Spotify this isn't me suddenly accepting this UI, this is me being barely content that a feature I used regularly now requires me to do more.

[andrasbaloo]

The new desktop client no longer checks for duplicate songs when creating or adding to a playlist! Please fix this ASAP as it's a crucial tool / feature of playlist creation and organization. Whenever adding or copying songs from an album or other playlist to an existing playlist there is no longer a pop-up for excluding duplicates. Another important note: I'm not able to test if this feature is still working on mobile (Android) client anymore because I can no longer mass-select-copy songs from one playlist to another.

[birdadjacent]

Yeah, there's pretty much nothing about this I like. It's all aesthetic, no substance improvements. And even some of the aesthetics aren't great.

Taking away the ability to sort playlists by artist is frankly cruel. That's literally the only way I've ever sorted my playlists.

Also, only having an album view on an artist page is an absolute nightmare. Let me play/see the entire discography like I've always been able to.

[1crimson1]

@Sebasty

Linux is pretty sweet that way. If you don't like a certain piece of your OS, pitch it and replace with something that works better.

[aps0730]

I'm not going to lie, I'm not a fan of this new format. It feels like I have to do more to get the page to look like how I want. I like the new Your Library page, however I think the default playlist order should be Custom Order rather than Most Relevant. I don't like how the podcasts, artists, albums, and local files tabs have been moved to be in the Your Library tab. I have to do more to get where I want. I liked it better when it was on the side. I also don't like how the Made For You page has been split and placed down on the Home page. It also takes more for me to go to my profile and I don't like the layout. I understand Spotify is doing it's best to bring new desktop experiences but I prefer the older layout to this new one.

[uglyniko]

PLEASE! Add the option to sort playlists by artist again. It made everything so organized for all of my playlists, when sorting by any other option it's highly unorganized and all over the place, the order of the songs when sorted by album are not sorted by how they appear on the actual album's track list makes no sense. That's all I need right now! Sort playlist by artist!

[RyanCu]

Now that the full screen button is removed, I have no way to get a closer look at the album art.  😞

[RyanCu]

The Forward page navigation button at the very top of the window disappears when the window is of a width less than around 1000px. Why? It's not like it makes room for anything else. It's especially frustrating as the keyboard shortcuts for Back and Forward no longer work either. 

[AlexWalrus35]

Lots of people have already expressed their thoughts on this update, but I'd like to pitch in as well. The features that are lost and used to be the most vital for me personally:

• Artists' discography by albums.
• Easily accessible search bar.
• Separate artist column.
• "Made for you" section in the left-side bar.

Also a couple of things that fewer people have mentioned. Album/single artworks displayed next to each individual song in a playlist are unnecessary, take up space, create a visual mess and don't even perform their function adequately as they are really tiny. 

One more particular thing that frustrates me and that almost no one seems to pay much attention to is the new font. I truly enjoyed the previous one, but the new one is a mess with letters being overly compressed and unnecessarily huge. And there are such instances like in the attached picture when letters "f" and "t" just don't align with each other while they definitely should. 

It's simply ugly and I can't understand how such things are possible if you obviously put emphasis on the app's appearance. The only result of the redesign is that the app has lost pretty much all of its visual appeal. 

 I also wonder why there is no new info on addressing the problems that have been mentioned here dozens, if not hundreds of times, apart from that one single message with a very limited list of improvements that we are about to see in a couple of days. If the issues I've cited aren't resolved until the day of my subscription renewal, which is mid-December, I will definitely cancel the subscription, as you're not only testing new features on paid subscribers without their consent, but also these features don't stand up to scrutiny at all. 

[delajungle]

I agree with a lot pf people here and with all is now missing in this update ; it's a real mess. I miss the old artist page, the artists' column and so many other things ! The UI is ugly and poor. Please bring back the old app and start to work on a strong new update ! We are customers, not guinea pigs. I am so Angry!

[lespons]

Probably it's already was mentioned but just in case

In past it was easy to point and click to play music from this, but now it's small green button, need some focus to click on this

I hope Im not alone think the same

[vinz313]

Like most people here I dislike the new UI and find that it didn't improve anything.

The most annoying changes are the inability to dislike/hide a song and the inability to filter playlist by typing on the keyboard (when I use the drop-down menu "add to playlist").

Please fix this ASAP!

[sadhiromi2001]

**bleep** there was an auto-update for me today, and it is the worst update ever. I am so derailed that I felt the need to come on here and make my first comment.

I am on Macbook. It looks way cluttered than it was previously with large track album tile in a playlist. Can someone else agree it was much better when it was clean text - TITLE | ARTIST | DATE ADDED. okay who cares about the album? or sorting it by Album? no one... spotify replaced the artist column with album and now we have to click on Track three times to toggle to sorting by Artist.

And for a Mac user having the new update feels like I'm having a Windows 10/Live system with the big rectangular tiles. 

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FRIEND ACTIVITY? I am nosy as **bleep** and i got to slide my cursor over to the side to get Friend Activity out...... please make it fixed and open as it was before this update.

not to mention there are changes to Artist profiles too. it used to show how people arrive at a lesser known artist; from which playlist. this puts playlist curators at a disadvantage, and for listeners too who want to find playlists with the same vibe.

[sadhiromi2001]

hahahahaha i love you

[rieskos]

Instead of making the experience better, you've made it worse. I understand the need for a different look and feel, but you don't seem to understand that every user has his or hers own personal wishes. But now your limiting us to what you think works best instead of giving us options. Give us more control over the View Settings. I know that's clearly not your policy as you've been taking more settings away from us (i.e. adjustable column width).

Personally I was okay with the changes at first glance. That is, until I opened a playlist and wanted to sort by artist and discoverd that the artist column is gone. Sure, with a little fidgeting on the title column, you can sort by artist. But that's just it. I want to be able to use the app without fidgeting. Fidgeting should not be an option. Three clicks should not be an option when one click was all I needed.

[Pongofant]

The first thing I noticed that bothered me with the new UI Update is that it does not ask to skip duplicates when adding songs to a playlist. This was a really useful feature as it makes keeping playlists tidy a thousand times easier. I hope this will be added back in soon. 

Second would be Artist albums being accessible only by clicking their cover now, I personally don't think this is a beneficial change, as it can make finding and scrolling through music quite a tiresome process. I prefer the old way of having the songs displayed directly on the Artist Profile, it's just faster and easier, no need for extra steps.

Otherwise I like the look and the snappy feel of the UI. Haven't experienced any other issues yet.

[MS5]

Eww this update is really not good, but two things I dislike the most
1. No longer being able to search from everywhere using the search box, now I have to go to the "Search" tab, then go back to where I was and so on
2. I'm simply gonna stop listening to "Discover weekly" as now I cannot dislike/hide a song or an artist. This defeats the whole purpose of this playlist (and ultimately, the purpose of paying for Premium), for me. How am I gonna get good recommendations if I'm not giving any feedback? Just PLEASE bring the dislike/hide option back.

[Wilq22]

The new IU is just terrible. I can't resume a podcast episode where i left, it no longer shows the progression of each episode in podcast page. When I listen to music I listen to albums rather than playlists, last update made liked albums page less accessible. Currently playing album/podcast/playlist image is no longer scalable - takes ~250px on my screen (you can only fold it); that is because the left side menu now has fixed width - you cannot make it wider to make all playlist names fit.
Sorry, I don't usually rant but this all has been bothering me for over a week now.

[JazzGJ]

And, in addition (all your points are, ehh, to the point) to the annoyance: the desktop does not 'remember' the chosen sorting settings. Especially those items that made Spotify an outstanding program have been ruined. No good!