Terrible new desktop UI

[Greggy300]

When I hit the upgrade link today I was shocked at the result. The new desktop UI is terrible! The playlist is now left aligned with a wiiiide horizontal distance between the info sections, so if I wanna do a quick check to see what date I have on a single track I'm playing I have to literately do a head move all over to the other side of the screen instead of just switching focus with my eyeballs, and the new width has left me with a chunk of many hundred purposeless empty pixels on the right hand side of the screen. This has left the volume controller waaay over to the bottom right compared to the action and content section that is left aligned, making the distance between these that is way out of balance. What's the point in that?! Why did you separate these UI sections THIS much? I could use keyboard actions to control the volume but the wast amount of empty space on the right hand side is still there. It looks pointless! It was so much better before where the content and playlist section was center aligned with the information in the playlist tightly in correspondence with each other. Now it's so scattered and informal.

And what about the release radar and all the personal content and suggestion that used to be handy available in the left side menu? It's nowhere to be found. I had to actually place a global search for "release radar" to get it. Really Spotify. Are you serious? Why? This creates alot of unnecessary clicks and actions and it ends up being an unwanted "out of sight out of mind" thing. I can't really see the benefit. This is the kinda content I want to have in close proximity, not many clicks away and out of sight. And what about the terribly loud focus state for each song in a playlist? When switching songs with the keyboard the focus state is so bright it hurts my eyes. And again, WHY did you left align the content? The bottom frame with the controller is still centered like before, so it looks terribly unbalanced and weird with a left aligned content section, the eyes goes back and forth trying to find a natural place to rest the eyes but the flow is gone. If you wanted to widen the content frame then you could at least made sure it rendered without tons of empty space on the right side of the screen? Have you tested and tried your layout on a variate of screen estates? You should. 

The top section is occupied with WAY too much meaningless content pushing what IS important way down in first render, so the playlists get shorter in the viewport that's left. What's the point in occupying 30% of the viewport with a playlist title and a global play/stop button for the list as default? You should switch that default to the layout that gets activated when it is scrolled.

Please Spotify, be big enough to admit a blunder. This is not a good update. Please reverse this thing and go back to the drawing board. Upgrades should be improvements and give the user a better user experience. I can't see a single beneficial improvement here. It's terrible guys. Just terrible.

[Medina33]

I couldn't agree more with this previous review. I was myself shocked when I first started navigating the new layout a few days ago.. The whole concept lacks creativity and every single new feature feels clunky. Cover designs for each song looks messy, not easy on the eye, and its also very distracting. Also, enumerating each song in a playlist... Really? I won't even mention the fact that creating a new playlist is now a painful experience, because moving songs from top to bottom can't be done in a swiftly way. All the opposite, trying to rearrange the order of songs feels very heavy when shifting and clicking. What an absolute mess!

Somehow you guys managed to encourage people to not create new playlists. And how about the artist profile info, like description, related artist, albums, etc. Users need to now scroll down in order to get to these.. The person whose idea this was should be fired! You must admit it Spotify, this is a shambles. Please rethink the changes you have made and get back to the user friendly experience we were used to. Otherwise, people would start emigrating to other music platforms out there...

[dthchm]

yes! i agree. i don't hate it, but very much dislike this new "style"....

[JCLoki]

The biggest issue for me is the inability to reorder podcasts.

The inability to sort podcasts makes it difficult to navigate episodes if you're someone who listens out of order, especially if you binge listen.

One example; I listen to Last Podcast on The Left, Which has Hundreds of episodes going back to 2015. I sort Alphabetically so I can autoplay just the "Side Stories", as these are more casual listen. I listen to their other episodes when I'm more attentive.  I was sorting Alpha for the past 2 or 3 months, both to listen exclusively to the "Side Stories" episodes as well as to easily find episodes of other podcasts, as sorting by Alpha is very common. This feature was randomly removed from me from their website and the desktop app a couple weeks ago, but apparently has been removed for most people since November, and has been ignored despite pleas to bring it back.

 Apparently the people with spotify think it is an improvement to remove methods of sorting, they obviously feel that you must adhere to a strict chronological method of sorting to enjoy their platform. 

Based on replies I've read in similar threads, It seems like their support team has their hands tied in regards to actual help and are instructed to repeat the same "We are making upgrades/improvements" over and over until people stop complaining about an issue. 

I understand how tough it is to work in customer service, but the lack of insightful help and change goes to show how out of touch the Leadership is to the needs of the fanbase. Reddit is full of upset consumers regarding this update as well as other more recent UI changes that service a "pretty look" over useful features. 

I'd rather a UI that looks like it was designed in the 90s that has useful features, than a "new and sleek" UI that is useless.

[JCLoki]

Agreed, I use spotify over all other platforms due to how simple it's been to manage my music and podcasts. Though the changes are beginning to make other services look more appealing. I don't pay for premium for them to make my listening experience more complicated.

[AbsolutelyNoFB]

The truth is that we don't have a desktop UI any longer. It's just a web UI, a dumbed down pile of garbage, that Spotify decided to force on their customers. There is no  regard for individuals and what each person wants. Rather, they are just a means to an end. Spotify should practice ethical design, but they don't. It's a shame, really.

[arielfmdp]

It is unacceptable that they have not consulted us for such terrible and annoying changes they have made to the user interface.

What the development team has achieved, if they exist, is that I have started looking for information on how to make a formal complaint, a comment, something ... and I realized that there is no such option from the menu of the program, which is another flaw. We cannot send feedback in an easy way. The only way I found is through this kind of community blog. Totally uncomfortable too, diving among countless topics to be able to find those that are related as closely as possible to what one is looking for and obviously the highest number of votes, so that it is minimally taken into account.

This is unfair. My time is also worth it !!

[CarlosE]

Hi there folks,

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community.

We're sorry to hear that your experience with the New Desktop app isn't as expected. We encourage you to share your comments in this thread, which is constantly being monitored by the right teams in order to collect all your feedback, as it helps us improve the app. You'll also find updates and changes to come in upcoming versions there. You can Subscribe to it so you don't miss out on any updates shared about it.

Once again, we appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback about this.

If you need a hand with anything else, we're always a post away.

Cheers!