Back/forward buttons are in the wrong place

[RonMoses]

Recently the back/forward buttons in the desktop app were moved to the far left. This places them much farther from the center panel, which is what those buttons control. Those buttons need to reside above the center panel.

This is what I'm talking about.

[KingDoubt]

Yes agree! This was a wth moment; it's been taken out of the primary work space, as if it's not a critical function!

<Back and >Forward are likely amongst some of the most used functions on the UI (telemetry will indicate as much), and moving them to the top left creates a massive amount of extra "mouse work". What was efficient previously, is now 10x less efficient. Sorry Spotify folks, but high frequency, high pixel count navigation is simply not efficient. No idea what could possibly have driven this change, it's awful. Maybe it's just muscle memory at this point, but I suspect not. You had it right, where it was! Stop messing with things you have got right.

This is what you have done:

[indiesounds]

The position of the back button has changed in the Windows desktop app. It was more in the center, Now, it's in the left corner of the app window. To go to the previous window, we used to move the cursor a little above; after clicking on a song. Now we have to move it all the way to the top left corner. It's inconvenient. Can you please move it back to its old place?

[itsjustasalad]

Just had an update and was getting frustrated when I was frantically clicking where the old buttons were only to realize they had moved to the far top left.  It's not a life breaking experience but from years of using it in the old position, and not to mention it's right where all of the media is placed it feels completely out of place.

Please consider moving them back to their original positions.

[ishouldbeking]

On the Windows desktop app today, I got a notification that the Home button had been moved to the center of the app to streamline my experience, or something like that. On its own, this seems fine, since I hardly ever click the home button anyway. What the notification didn't mention was that the back and forward navigation arrows have now been shunted to the upper left corner. Like anyone who frequently navigates within albums, within playlists, through Fans Also Like pages and so forth, I use these buttons constantly--literally hundreds of times a day. There's no reason to move them to the far corner, which is unintuitive and wastes time. Unnecessary and unintuitive UI changes just degrade the experience of using the app, especially for longtime users.

tl;dr the new placement of the Home button is fine; I never use it, but it's fine in the center; but there was no reason to move the navigation arrows! Just put them back next to the search bar and put the Home button half an inch further to the left.

[Captain-MAK-Sparrow]

The top left is still a bit crowded on the PC app, which just got updated to put the home and search bar in the top middle.  It's a little difficult to hit the back button.

[ware4me]

The new desktop is not bad, but you moved the "Go Back" and "Go Forward" buttons top left, outside of the action in the middle while searching or browsing.

Please consider bringing those back to the original place or at least near the center, next to the new home button.

Thanks 😄

[Hardcoreboogie]

These are exactly my thoughts!

For the sake of convenience, the main user panel and core navigational UI elements should be positioned close together. I'm using the app on a 27-inch monitor. And like OP, I use the navigation arrows countless times per day. With the arrows now in the upper-left corner, it's physically uncomfortable to push the cursor way up there.

[JS1234]

The only reason I can think of is they want to make the desktop app and website similar to the mobile app. It makes no sense.

[amorgan0451]

Moving the back/forward buttons to the far upper-left corner is, specifically, a terrible change - because it moves the UI navigation buttons away from the parts of the UI that you're most likely interacting with when you want to use them, and which actually change when you press them. Their new position also now makes it extremely easy to mis-click the ... Menu button. I think this is the worst single UI change made to the desktop app in years. I honestly can't believe it got through any sort of UX testing.

For that matter, disconnecting the Home/Search/Browse sections from the "Your Library" portion on the left is simply bad design. Home, Search, Browse, and Library should be reunified as they are each the master nodes that dictate the content of the main UI panel in the center.

Also, the entire center panel changing to the Browse screen if you merely click in the Search bar is inexplicable and unnecessary. It should only change when a search is actually performed.

Speaking of the Library, the ship has long sailed but you should bring back the unified Your Library screen/"For You" section. The left side panel is a miserable replacement. I can't even FIND the Daily Mixes/For You/Your Artist Mixes etc anymore.

[reginaldgatherflower]

The new layout with the Search and Home in the middle is fine but now the forward/back buttons feel isolated and far away in that top left corner. they should be in the middle too, on the other side of the Search bar. They also feel smaller and too close together, so they're harder to click. Make them feel bigger with the circle around them like the Home button.