Exploring new ways of adding items to "Your Library"

[Dian]

Hey there folks,

Our design team has started exploring new ways to add items to "Your Library". This is why we'd love to hear your feedback on the new implementations, because those changes are done with the goal to better your experience on our platform.

The design may differ in either having a heart symbol or a plus sign with other subtle differences.

If you're part of this undertaking, post your constructive feedback in this thread and the relevant team will review it. 

Cheers!

[Dian]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for taking the time to share your constructive feedback on the recent changes, we appreciate it! Rest assured that we're actively monitoring this thread and taking notes, so do keep on submitting your suggestions here!

So far, the following main areas of feedback have been taken taken into account and forwarded to the relevant team (this being a summary, with the actual report being more in-depth):

• Adding a whole album to a playlist is really useful.
• Swiping to add a song to the user's Liked Songs is practical.
• Adding songs to other playlists works well, but adding songs to the Liked list now takes more actions, which isn't ideal.
• The "heart" symbol in Now Playing view just looks visually better to you and makes it easier to tell if a track has been added specifically to your Liked Songs.
• Tracks no longer having a "heart" symbol on the artist page or when viewing albums and playlists is dearly missed.
• When tapping the "plus" symbol, the Liked Songs playlist should be deselected OR it should be separate from the "heart".

Don't worry - the current changes are something we're still testing out, so they aren't final. The purpose of these tests is exactly to help us improve the app thanks to your input. Gathering and evaluating all of your feedback may take some time as we don't want to miss any of it, so please give us a few weeks to process all of the information and get things finalized.

We'll continue to monitor this thread for your suggestions and pass them on to the relevant team. We'll keep you folks posted as soon as we have any new information to share.

Besides letting us know what you're missing from the recent changes, it'd be really helpful if you could point out what you really enjoy (or maybe want to see) in regards to adding songs/episodes to your playlists and library.

Thanks again for making Spotify better and apologies for any inconvenience for the time being!

[enbied]

Please keep in mind that different people use the app in fundamentally different ways, because there are gaps in functionality (e.g. listen later playlists, like vs love, 'heard this before' markers). I've had to design my own systems within the constraints of the app, and I would be devastated if these changes were rolled out to me and destroyed how I've curated and managed my music for almost a decade, because of how you think people should have been using Spotify. I appreciate the outreach via this post though.

[datsimpossible_5]

Hello!

Thanks for facilitating this. It appears that I see some of these changes as well. Adding content to "your library" really is one of the most fundamental experiences as a Spotify user. There's nothing like discovering a new song or artist, and that discovery process is what makes Spotify different from all other listening/streaming tools. My library has become a massive and connected smoothie of content.

I have two different ways I add content to my library.

1. I used the previous like (heart) button to add songs to my liked songs playlist. I could listen to that playlist which features 5,000+ songs of all kinds of genres, and it's the best. I also would 'like' songs so I could have a frame of reference for my taste when I'm browsing new playlists. In the past, it has been beneficial to see the heart icon next to songs in a playlist.
2. I also add songs to playlists that I've made. I typically have done this through the 'add to playlist' option in the song men.

These are the new changes I have noticed:

• Removal of heart icon and like functionality
• Removal of heart icon next to songs in a playlist*
• Replaced with a plus icon that changes to a green check mark icon when a song has been added to a playlist or liked songs.
• Swiping left on a song activates the 'add to playlist' option. It shows all the playlists in your library and you can select one or multiple.

It appears that this new format de-emphasizes the like/heart experience which was one of the most rewarding micro-experiences in the product. There's even a fantastic article from Spotify Design on the creation of the heart button. These previous micro-interactions make users feel positive and happy; the new format lacks this. Besides this, the only other thing that is missing from the new format is an identifier of your library when you're browsing music.

If the team added back that heart/plus indicator in a list view AND created a new party-like micro-interaction for adding content to playlists, this could end up being a very helpful and efficient update.

[Kaithk]

Give back the heart button to add to liked songs!

[paulduane]

It **bleep**ing sucks. How's that for some feedback? It wasn't broken, why did you try to "fix" it? Spotify had the best user interface, which is why I use it, and now you broke it. Don't make it rocket science to just "like" a song. I want the heart icon back. 

[paulduane]

I've been a premium subscriber for 10 years. This "update" is the worst thing ever. I am astounded at how annoying this is. I'm a DJ and I use Spotify constantly to find and organize new music. The heart icon made all kinds of sense. I know it sounds crazy, but Spotify just became a lot less user friendly for my work flow. I'm going to revisit Apple Music tonight.  As someone who is completely immersed in the Apple ecosystem,  I've WANTED to like Apple Music for years, but your User Interface has always been superior. It's not anymore. 

[Fumanspot]

I would like the ability to add albums to playlists back again. Also the ability to like all songs on an album and see the songs that I’ve liked. These are poorly thought out changes. Why take away functionality?

[andrewhan1]

This is a terrible decision and basically destroyed the entire user experience. Even when I click the "+" icon, check "liked songs" and press "done", it doesn't add the song to my liked songs. Now I have to go into liked songs and click "add songs" in order to add any song to the list. How was this update even approved? Whoever thought of shipping this update to non-beta regular users should be fired. The app is basically unusable at this point.

[mnevs27]

GET RID OF IT!!!!! IT DOES NOT ADD THE SONGS TO THE LIKED PLAYLIST THEY NEVER GET ADDED REMOVE THIS!!!!!! WHEN IM DRIVING ITS A NIGHTMARE AND A DANGER

[buddenandy]

When are you fixing these clearly unwanted changes, its already been too long? This is the first time in 13 years paying premium I have ever considered leaving BRING BACK; 

• THE HEART so you can see what songs you like without clicking on that one track and can see which ones in an album you've liked
• ADDING ALBUMS TO FOLDERS you can only add to library now and if you download it to listen offline it hearts every song and adds it to that artists likes, I don't know if I like all those songs yet!
• THE ABILITY TO CURATE YOUR OWN SPOTIFY you have removed this which was Spotify's beauty, your songs, in your folders, saved where YOU CHOOSE to save them, in the order you choose to save them.  This last options was replaced with recently listened playlist auto moving to the top months ago. 

FIX IT PLEASE! Or at the very least reply to let us know that you are at least acknowledging everyone's concerns. Poor customer service.

[Teerawat55]

On the same location on screen, replacing with a new icon that does the opposite thing is not the best design practice. Imagine I finally find a song I have been looking for for a long time, and instead of liking it and keeping it to listen tto later, I just have just hid it and will not see it again! Imagine how frustrating that is!

[Mg1305]

I do not like the plus sign and would much rather that my interface changed back to the heart ‘like’ symbol. I find the plus ‘add to library’ system a lot clunkier and annoying to use. 

[Stan2021]

Can’t add full albums to a playlist. Not exactly user friendly and a terrible decision 

[Mazagtr]

Totally not a fan of the heart button being taken away as others below have said previously. Do not like that it has added an additional step in the process instead of just clicking the heart and going immediately to my likes songs.

[keegrose]

Please bring back the like button! The like button is so much faster to actually add it to my liked playlist. If you incorporate this new add button, please make it optional. I hate it, which is upsetting because I prefer Spotify over any other streaming service, but now with this tediousness of having more steps to like a song, it’s bumming me out.

TLDR:
0/10, Bring the like button back, I understand wanting a shortcut to add to another playlist, but how about creating a SEPARATE button for that instead of taking away what we like about liking music!!!

[31m336x46acvdhsl4lkf]

Please Bring back the heart button , its easier and faster to like songs rather than having the whole thing popping up

[Valou]

Same as everyone in this thread, I miss the heart button dearly. This was a great way to store the songs I liked for later in a common place (I have ~7k liked songs at this point and often listen to my liked song playlist in shuffle mode to rediscover old stuff). The new process is unintuitive since it now requires two clicks to save these songs. Moreover, there is no way to know if I liked songs in another playlist anymore. This was a great way to know which songs I previously liked in my discover weekly for example (I religiously listen to my discover weekly every week. I even have an IFTTT set up to save my discover weekly in a discover weekly history playlist)

[AlejandroCastillo]

I got this update and is horrible, I prefer 100% times the like button, is easier and faster to add songs to the playlist in that way, also is better because you just add to the liked songs and that’s everything, please bring back just the like button.

[Jaycouture]

I really liked the heart (double tap feature) that sends the song directly to my favorites, I’m disappointed that it was removed honestly…

[sweetchildxo]

Please Please Please bring the like button back. I can see this being useful for people who constantly utilize playlists but for the people who don’t and just use their liked songs this is so inconvenient. I’m one of the people that doesn’t use playlists and uses just my liked songs. At the bare minimum if you can’t bring the likes back show us which songs are in our liked songs list. I listen to a lot of artists and it’s hard going through the albums and not being able to see what I actually liked. But I think everyone likes it better with the like button, and can guarantee 99% of people did not ask for this.

[UnexpectedRabbit]

Sure, I have feedback. This change is pure garbage. Bring back the heart icon and never, ever do anything like this again. Quit trying to fix what's not broken.