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.

[delajungle]

Why so much empty place in the new front-page of the artist ? we need to scroll and scroll when on the old one, in the blink of an eye, we had all we need (streams, other artists)... Like a lot of people I miss the search box...

[zarrell]

The amount of space the new playlist-buttons in the side menu take up is ridiculous. I seldom expand album artwork, but when I do the small space to scroll in is pretty hilarious. It looks better on my other larger screen, but still -waste of space!

Sidenote: Song no. is shown over hover highlight when right-click menu is open, looks a bit glitchy.

ps:

It's so obvious you want to steer users into creating playlists, browsing and liking songs much more so than actually listening. Maximising engagement. Which is sick considering that this is a paid service. 

[wocalax19]

It's another day, and here I am to post again, lest folks don't get riled up as they should be over this forced beta. I am here to rile.

So here is a friendly reminder to y'all in this thread.

You were FORCED into this beta. You did not sign up. You never asked for this. That is WRONG. You cannot opt out.

*White windowless van pulls up to me, three Men in Black pop out*
"Wocalax19, you have the honor of participating in the US CDC test trial of a new fingernail growth medicine. Please let us know all the side-effects you experience because, shoot, there seems to be a lot in the other folks who got it...."

"What the fudge are you serious right, now? Fingernail length medicine. We don't need that, we are good"

*Agent pricks me with a needle* "Thank you for your service Wocalax19" * Agents pile into the van and drive off into the sunset*

"HELP! DID ANYONE SEE**bleep**!?!? WHAT THE **bleep**!"


I'm saving my comparison to Windows for page 48 of bad feedback. (remember Windows 8, the mobilification of Windows? The one that went so bad they skipped Windows 9 to distance themselvs from it?"

[Sebasty]

@zarrell I actually love your vision on how the Liked Songs and Create New Playlist buttons should be placed. Neatly as icons on the Playlists bar. Beautiful and simple. If a user asks what they are, simply hover over and a little description popup appears.

The current buttons are such eyesores tbh, they don't fit with the rest of the client at all. Like MS Paint icons. 😅

I will definitely miss the ease of doing discog runs on an artist. I don't want shuffle, I don't want a This Is.. playlist either. I just want to hit play on an album and it will play this and all the following albums and also singles/EP's.

I figured out you can get something akin to that if you hit the large Play button on the artist page (it will play the 10 popular tracks and then go over to albums), but this is not flexible at all.

(my mild excitement over the context menus being merged was short-lived. Still opens the artist-related context menu as well. Goddamnit. Would be really useful when queuing stuff in a playlist...)

[greeblehaus]

Thanks for this thread, I was searching through all the idea recs but it seems a bunch has already been addressed. One of my biggest complaints was the songs adding to the top of the playlist, so I look forward to tomorrow's release.

A few other suggestions:
- Bring back Artist in the sorting columns - on desktop at least - PLEASE!!!
- Put the search button at the top all the time instead of having to click on the left to make it appear

- I do really like the "top genres" buttons that help get down into your playlists I like most
- Bring back more artist info like concerts (when they do them again), put social links up on the right above the popular song list, have the artist photo/about content fill the screen on desktop as you pull it around in size.

- When you clicked a song that is playing, perhaps while listening to a playlist, it goes to the origin place of that song. But it used to be highlighted when you did that, which made it easier to drag into your own playlists. Now you have to hunt for it. Please bring back that highlight.

- You used to be able to click on someone's profile and see if they were following you or not. Please bring that back.

- In fact, right now, you cannot click to see who you are following or who is following you at all (in the top banner of your profile)
- Would also love to be able to see who is following my playlists
- Also, seems like a ton of music has disappeared, but that's probably for another thread.

Thanks for listening to our concerns!

[SmellySocks]

As a follow-up to my last message, there's been several more occasions where an album page does not load for me, preventing me from listening to any music until I completely restart the client. This behaviour actually gets too into the way and it's encouraged me to just start listening to music through YouTube instead for the time being until this UI is either more reliable, or becomes reversible for the time being.

[spfitzinger]

Overall, the new interface has a nice look and feel to it, but I'm having a couple of problems.

1 - When working in my own playlist, I cannot drag a track up and have the list scroll. When I grab one and drag it down, it scrolls until I let go, but it's not working upwards.

2 - I still cannot sort the results of a general search. Keyword searches can yield large results lists, and the ability to click on a column header to sort by Artist, Album, etc., would be very helpful.

Thank you.

Scott

[spfitzinger]

While it looks nice to list the artist below the track title, that removed the option to sort by artist. I have some huge playlists and want to know what tracks I have by a particular artist, and I can't tell anymore.

[thousandaire]

Why can't I hide tracks from playlists or tell it to not show me tracks from an artist? What possible benefit to the user is that?

[user-removed]

- Position in a playlist is not stored when you go to a different page. If you open an album and then go back you're back at the start.

- Clicking the song album cover doesn't take you to the position of the song inside an album/playlist

- Can't change the width of the left sidebar

- Interface only scaled to what I think is 1080p? After that the right side is just empty

- On an artists page, the songs are hidden behind another click for an album or single. I like scrolling through an artist's page and looking if there's anything that sticks out to me to listen to. Now I don't want to because I'll have to click everything, wait for it to load etc.

- Hiding sorting by Artist by clicking 'name' 3 or 4 times is super confusing and terrible design

- Where is the search bar? How does removing the search bar in 90% of the application fit with music discovery?

- The search bar inside a playlist is so small that the default text doesn't even get displayed fully, even though there's like 30cm of available space. I like seeing what I type

- You can sort playlist by 'most recently listened' but you can't choose ascending or descending

- 'Private session' option has a smaller font than the other options

- The way the songs are displayed in the 'Your Liked Songs' box in 'Your Library' is pretty confusing, at first I thought it decided to show the featuring artists of songs first before I realized it's the content of the first song overflowing.

- The space between letters (kerning) in playlists names differs from none at all in 'La' and 'ET', to like 2mm in 'up' and 'EN'. If you make a playlist called 'ETEN' you'll see what I mean. See also 'FAV' where the distances are very different.

[wocalax19]

It's so frustrating. The feature is still there. It's just more buttons and silly to me. You have to triple-click the title. Yup, that is right. Screw having another column, we'll force all of it into one. It's so **bleep**ing ridiculous.

[aps0730]

Everything just requires more buttons to get where I want. Before, I could just click my username in the top right and see my profile. Now I have to do more to get to the same place. It's the same with everything such as local files and podcasts. Before, I could just select view playlist radio and see what kind of songs are there and what I choose to play. Now it starts automatically, and I have to go into the queue to see what's next. It was so simple before and now you just made it so complicated. Can you also give us a way to get out of this test? I don't like this new version and don't want to see it anymore. You should've made this update optional/voluntary. I want the old format back.

[m-elias]

Bahaha you guys force your paid users into doing your beta testing for you, with no way to opt-out? Are you nuts? What an incredible way to lose customers. I can guarantee if you allow an opt-out (better yet, make it opt-in only) you will have a LOT less hostility in these threads, and I bet it will even help with employee turnover - all this negative energy is not a great work environment!

Besides that astounding lack of common sense with business practices, it seems like this desktop update is at best a step sideways, not forward. Most likely backwards. Features have been shuffled around with seemingly no new functionality, with bugs galore. More clicking, more dead space throughout the UI. 

You're not the only music streaming service any more, you have like 35% of the market. If you don't strive towards improvement, users may flock away in droves. Be careful.

[wocalax19]

Hi Spotify team and other folks here,

Quick Reminder to the subscribers here.... YOU DID NOT SIGN UP TO BE PART OF THIS BETA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They are forcing you, a paying customer(At least I am), to Beta test their garbage. You cannot opt out.

That's **bleep**ed up. This is a disgusting way to treat people. I can't believe more folks here aren't pointing that out. Are y'all seriously OK with being forced to beta stuff that you pay for?

Now let's talk Windows 8. The mobilification of Windows. Did people like it? Nope. It was a mobile experience forced on all laptops and desktops as if they were tablets and THEY ARE NOT.
Was their blacklash. Yup.... So much so that they rushed into making Windows 10. So much so that they offered free upgrades to Windows 10.
Wait, what about Windows 9.... THEY SKIPPED IT TO DISTANCE THEMSELVES FROM THE FAILURE THAT WAS WINDOWS 8.

I'll spell it out for you Spotify UX team. WE DO NOT WANT MOBILE EXPERIENCES ON DESKTOP. WE WANT A DESKTOP EXPERIENCE. We want to control the density of information on the screen(Gmail lets me control if it's comfy, dense, or light and Windows File Explorer lets me control my view.)

If you want to waste your time **bleep**ing up your UI, at least do it with options so we can turn off your subpar mobile features cause they should not be part of a desktop experience.

From a loyal subscriber who doesn't want to leave but also doesn't like being abused and is starting to wonder more and more about Google Play Music(which is apparently now Youtube Music),

wocalax19
Spotify use over Desktop, Android, and Xbox One.

[tripwired]

Why have we still had no official Spotify follow up to this - now, 48 page - thread? Is this what Spotify class as good customer service and this unable to opt-in/out update a good customer experience? Seriously?

[sadhiromi2001]

ONE BIG ERROR (or was it deliberate?)

adding a new song to a playlist now sends it to the TOP of the playlist. like, what is your aim Spotify? this is counterproductive to the playlists we each have made over the years. mixtapes. playlists with a specific flow. please fix it.

[sadhiromi2001]

as a person with 200 playlists this is very hard.

[m-elias]

one of the messages pinned to the top of this thread says they're fixing it tomorrow:

These have been fixed in the upcoming desktop release, Nov 30
“Adding a new track to a playlist puts it to the top instead of the bottom of a playlist”

[patrick00000]

I don't know if you're still listening on this thread (or if you ever really listened) but my app just updated and I am thoroughly **bleep** off with it. There was ONE single feature which kept me using spotify and it is now removed! I like to listen to an artist's entire discography and I used to be able to go to an artist's page and start playing any song I liked and let it continue playing across albums. Now I have to click into individual albums, play it, click back out and into a different album to listen to that one. If I wanted to manually change albums, I'd go back to listening to physical records. This is 2020. Please let me listen to all the albums without needing to click into each one!!!

[ymmv99]

Absolutely. I am paying $120 a year for this service. I expect 100% working, feature rich software for my subscription money. I never signed up to be a beta tester for a buggy mobile app on my Windows PC that looks absolutely awful on my 4K PC monitor. The amount of empty space is just staggering.

Please offer an official opt out before more people figure out it's better to install the older version and completely block the auto update mechanism. Because that's what I'm going to do.