What's up with this new desktop UI?

[tetre]

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

I don't know where else to post this, but the new desktop UI is terrible. I'm running version 1.2.7.1277.g2b3ce637 and have tried the methods to revert the UI I've found elsewhere in the community (like changing prefs file, which I had to dig for), but none have worked.

The UI is just the complete opposite of what I'd want on desktop- very noncompact, difficult for no reason, and generally looks to be modeled more for phones than for a desktop.

If anyone knows a way to revert the update, please let me know.

[barreleye]

New subscriber here, and this is my first use of any music streaming service. I like that I can add albums to my library, but how am I supposed to use it? I'm on Windows desktop app right now, and the only view is Albums, which I never use in software like MusicBee. I want to be able to choose between a list of Album Artists, Composers, Genres, etc, with the relevant works displayed beside the selected item. I don't see how to do this. If I go to Artists, composers and performers are all mixed together, and the sorting is all wrong. I have to know the first names of classical composers to locate them in the wasteful grid view. If I click on one of them, I see everything associated with them, not just what's in my library, despite having navigated to Artists from "Your Library".

My initial impression is that Spotify is like a radio service with "library" features as an afterthought. Am I missing anything?

[rossisdead]

---

@AlejaR wrote:

At Spotify, we're always testing new improvements and features to give our users a better experience.

---

I have an idea for a feature that provides users a better experience: The ability to opt out of "improvements" immediately. It should be made painfully obvious in the app that you're beta testing a new feature and give an immediately available toggle to opt out. It should also give an immediately available feedback option so the user can give feedback for that specific feature.

Now having said that, I'm not looking forward to this new UI being forced on me at all. I *like* that my playlist list is dense. The extra information being displayed is just noise. I don't add pictures to playlists, and I sure as **bleep** don't need to know who created the playlist when 99% of the time it's just gonna say my name. It should 100% be an option to keep the dense list format after this is released.

[Sp0tifySucks420]

Stop breaking the desktop software. This is the worst iteration of your UI design by far. Playlists are less readable, less usable, and feature redundant and unnecessary information. Nothing in the desktop UI feels designed. Everything is just a plain playlist. There was no attention for the desktop UI. I don't even wear glasses and the GUI is once again less readable, less space for useful information. Why are there thumbnails on the playlist? Useless! Why is my screen name under each playlist? Even more useless! There are tags "Playlists", "By You", "Spotify", etc, but they are obscured by the GUI, by themselves. More uselessness. The Home page is equally useless still. Just an array of icons, a boring grid that shows a total lack of design by Spotify. iOS app gets updated, is actually improved, but the desktop GUI is completely ignored. At least, it is designed with no care whatsoever. Once again Spotify changes it's UI for it's desktop client software, and now that software is even more useless. Just like Spotify.

[Samlynngb99]

New update on home screen is horrible. Please change it back ...i dont listen to most of the suggestions they don't seem tailored to my liking. My friends have yet to be updated...why me????

Leving if not addressed asap.

[syllabubian]

The latest version of Spotify desktop has removed my ability to sort my playlists in an order of my choosing; I now have to choose to sort by Recents, Recently added, Alphabetical or Creator, none of which I find remotely useful.  Why would you take this functionality away?

[Ned2600]

Fun fact: You are able to change this is the settings, there should be a option called "use compact libary".

But again this doesn't solve the rest of the UI changes, which are not in favor for a lot of people.

[graphicdesignismypas]

This complaint was originally about being unable to order my playlists in the METICULOUS custom order I had them in. I then pressed Many buttons to find the option to do this. THIS SHOULD BE THE DEFAULT!

Sorry if the algorythm worshiping ceos think you should be pushing other aspects of this MUSIC STREAMING SITE. I can't wait for this site to crash and burn when you Finally reach the point of no return and your entire userbase gives up on you 🙂

Maybe listen to us for once and stop changing the ui. I'm in my twenties and I'm already starting to struggle, I can't IMAGINE how difficult this change is for anyone who is Less tech savvy than me.

AND APART FROM THAT IT'S UGLY!!!

Stop trying to make your desktop app look 'more like the mobile app' and make them BOTH actually FUNCTIONAL :))))))

I shouldn't have to filter to playlists, the podcasts and other things being in other lists was a GOOD THING. Stop making me use stupid tags and other nonsense, go touch some grass and learn how non-tech industry people interact with applications?

I have been a loyal customer since 2016, but I have been slowly driven away ever since the mobile app shifted to this crappy sorting method of 'throw it all in a list and only show the most recently engaged content unless you jump through the right hoops'. It's bad user experience, and I'm tired. You have a year to improve, in the meantime I will be researching alternatives, I think you'll find many will do the same 🙂

[MattSuda]

Hey folks,

If you need a familiar experience to help you get started with the new Your Library sidebar, here's how to get it as close as possible to the old sidebar that previously only showed playlists:

• In the left "Your Library" sidebar, click on the "Playlists" filter at the top.

• Then, in the sort options drop down menu select "Custom Order". You will then see your previous playlist order and be able to move your playlists and folders like before.

• Your currently chosen filters and sort options will be remembered across restarts of the desktop app.

• If you would like to only see text in the Your Library sidebar (no art covers), go to the Spotify app Settings ➜ Library ➜ and turn on "Use compact library layout".

• Flexible Sizing: You can drag the Your Library sidebar to different sizes. Fully expand the sidebar by clicking the arrow button at the top, and fully collapse the sidebar by clicking on the "Your Library" heading to see only art covers.

• At the top, you can scroll through the different filters with your mouse scroll wheel for faster navigation when the sidebar is set to a smaller size. 

Hopefully this info helps!

Check out my help guide for more help:

Desktop: New Your Library sidebar

[MattSuda]

Hey @Ned2600 

If you would mainly like to focus on playlists, in the left "Your Library" sidebar, click on the "Playlists" filter. Then, in the sort drop down select "Custom order".

Your current preference will be remembered each time you start up the Spotify desktop app.

If you would like to only see text in the Your Library sidebar like you used to be able to before the update, go to the Spotify app Settings ---> Library ---> and select "use compact library".

You can also drag the left sidebar to different sizes, as well as fully expand the sidebar by clicking the arrow button, and fully collapse the sidebar by clicking on the "Your Library" heading.

The album art experience in the bottom left corner is still being improved. Stay tuned for future improvements.

Hopefully this info helps!

[MattSuda]

Hey @snakedisorder 

The album art experience in the bottom left corner is still being improved.

Stay tuned for future improvements.

[StranaHyena]

The desktop app has completely been turned into trash. The whole library page is gone, and now it's all relegated to a cluttered and crowded sidebar thing. It's such a pain to look for my albums and playlists now because of this filtering system bullcrap. DESKTOP APPS SHOULD NOT TRY TO MIMIC MOBILE UI DESIGN.

Looks like I'll be recreating my playlists on youtube. heh, atleast there I can use adblock.

[Ned2600]

I understand, that it's possible to change the library sorting and how you want to view it, but again as stated before these are way to much loops and hoops, you have to go through.

Also happy to hear that the album art experience is being looked at!

[imbeql1]

Some things with the new library playlist view weren't intuitive for me as a longtime user, maybe nitpicking. My feedback on the updated sidebar and library view:

1) Default settings, Playlist sorting

To achieve the old look and feel, you have to set the filter to "Playlists", set Sort to Custom - This should be done by default to existing users with plenty of playlists. This was annoying to figure out.

2) Library Folder navigation - Expand/collapse buttons

On the old design if you clicked a folder's name, it would expand the tree view and show the contents. Instead now it navigates into a folder. Navigating into folders does not offer me any benefit, putting expand/collapse only onto the tiny buttons is a usability downgrade for me. Took me way too long to figure this one out.

3) Library Folder navigation - Folder navigation quirks

When I have navigated into a folder:

- With drag and drop, I can't move folders or playlists within this folder to an upward level

- Clicking the folder name opens the rename action for some reason

- The back / upward button is sandwiched between the library button and folder name, too many buttons cramped into tiny space

Suggestion: Make the whole "< Foldername" thing navigate upwards. Or put a "< Go Upward" list entry right at the top and remove the "<" button from the top (see attached picture).

4) The library icon collapses and expands the sidebar into icons, including "Start" and "Search" which are not part of the library. Better would be a separate icon like Twitch has it.

[joshkgw]

Agreed completely. This new UI is less functional, less pleasing, and less readable than it was before - it's essentially worse in every conceivable way. Who approved this? It might be the worst UI I've used recently. 

[martinshaw]

TBH, countering the OP's comment. I really like the new redesign and I hope it doesn't change back. 

I don't need a compact UI, because I don't have the client in the corner of the screen while doing other things. It is a music player so I have it in the background. 

When I cmd+tab to the Spotify app, I am happy that all of the screen is used because my sole task in that moment is to explore and change tracks. 

Having the ability to have other albums / playlists on the left and the current album / queue on the right is really helpful rather than having to switch between these two different sides of the app all of the time. I like it a lot!!

Dense and powerful controls subtly positioned around beautiful album art is the best. 

Thank you!

[vaajy]

For anyone who does not like new interface. There is an option.

You subscribe to Lite service of Big Google video portal and enjoy legally added music by labels for 6,99 euros only.

Sound quality is somewhere near 160K only, but you can have your playlists capped to 5 000 each.

I keep this as an option as most of the time my music is listened on laptop.

For mobile use you can continue using any free service with ads, as Lite does not work screen off.

I still find this Spotify update weird on my laptop, I'm tryna to get used with it.

[fredericc]

Hi,
This new design is absolutly awfull to use.

The library is displaying mixed : albums / artists / playlist all together which is a nonsense. Using the pill to filter on top of them is a UI nonsense also whild the previous version was very nice to use.

Listing Playlists / Albums / Artists in the sidebar only ? all this place on the right is useless while I navigate in this tiny sidebar.

If the app stay as this I seriously think about switching to another service after more than 10 years as a paying customer. This interface is actually a pain to use.

Lot of graphic bugs listed by other users, please test your own software before making your paying customer some beta testers.

[MalteAnderhagen]

This recent UI change I've gotten on desktop is horrible tbh, I suspect it's an experimental update because none of my friends have gotten it, but basically it looks like the mobile UI does (and not the new one their testing out with a tik-tok-like feed, the one they had before that)

It feels like the people making the UI are missing the point, you don't need to update your UI this often, everytime you make a new one you break something that previously was fine, this time I've been hit with a major annoyance. I can no longer sort my playlists and folders to my own liking, I'm only given four options. Alphabetical, Recents, Recently added, and Creator. None of these really give a good overview of my library, previously I've had my own way of customizing and organizing my library, I had sections of folders set up, ordered them up myself to my own liking and made it all neat to my own eyes. Now I don't even have the option to sort them myself, and of top of that, I don't find the new more mobile-like UI to be aesthetically pleasing or more intuitive.

Also worth noting, everything seems to take up more space on your screen with this UI, I find this especially annoying because on desktop, if I adjust the windows size just a little, suddenly I won't be able to really take in any of the information that should be on-screen, song names will be shortened to one letter and a bunch of dots like "A..." and the same happens to artists' names, at the same time, I can still see my full list of friends on the right, and all my playlists on the left.

And I bet spotify staff reading this will think they have an ace up their sleeve, they will say "There is an option to see your library in 'compact view' if you look in the settings menu, which would seem to address all your worries " Well guess what, this view still fails me. It is a lot more similar to what we used to have, and if i sort by "creator" it does get a lot closer, but I still suddenly have new things in this view that I don't want to see here. Artists I follow have suddenly earned their own space in my library tab (Something I previously specifically chose not to have) I don't follow that many artists but I suspect this would become very annoying to people who follow many artists. The most annoying thing about this is that I can't get them out of the library view without unfollowing them or hiding them away in some folder which I wouldn't even have any control over when it comes to where it lands in a list. Again, I am limited to spotifys four sorting options, and I can't custom sort it. Holy **bleep** switch it back to how it was before, and don't change it ever again, I might just switch to TIDAL at this point, I hear they pay their artists too you know?

[aarlihn]

Hey,

I like the new desktop update but experienced an issue today for the second time, using Spotify for macOS 1.2.7.1277.g2b3ce637. In this new update I see that when dragging a song the left playlist column now highlights the entire area green first to add to Liked Songs, until you hover over a select playlist. I accidentally dropped the song before getting to my playlist and this added it to my Liked Songs, even though the song was already there, and changed its Date Added to today’s date.

Metadata like this means a lot to me. Now when sorting by Date Added my Liked songs are out of order, for I first saved this song earlier this year. I’d appreciate if Spotify had dialog pop-ups to show the song is already Liked or to just not re-add the song at all. Thanks!

[vaajy]

I follow over 1,000 artists and they all are showing up on that list.

It makes it hard to scroll, I think this needs work please. One may have albums as much, to add.

The minimize option for list is something, but it still has much scrolling.

I'd recommend some more work on this.