5 ms·

An open letter to thesixtyone.com

39 points by clistctrl 17y ago

clistctrl 17y ago
I find the new site to be one of the most beautiful, and innovative sites I have yet to seen. Unfortunately they gave up a site with fantastic usability, and many users are up in arms about this. So up in arms they're spreading the word about how much they detest the new layout which is having the effect of bringing in record number of listeners. The entire scenario is extremely interesting.
- _Lemon_ 17y ago
  I agree. Wow. What a site! What's wrong with it? (are my thoughts) Only a few minor issues with usability though, like "what does this button do" how do I "find a different category of music" that was solved by clicking a couple of buttons.
  - trafficlight 17y ago
    If it's your first time on the site, nothing is wrong with it. It looks awesome. But if you've been using it for a year or two, you'll find that all of the social interaction between fans and artists is gone. The group interaction is gone. Your saved songs are gone. It's a very pretty shell of what it used to be.
    - jmtame 17y ago
      i thought my saved songs were gone too. they're not, they're just in "history." and if you use your keyboard to tap next, it should persist on that window and not switch album covers. at least it was for me.
      - bugs 17y ago
        In my history it is the history of hearted songs not my saved songs which before I stopped using thesixtyone I used as a playlist on shuffle (I never really liked tagging songs).
        jmtame 17y ago
        i think the new site is about discovery. if you like the music, stick it on your iphone or listen to it in itunes--it probably consumes a lot of bandwidth to constantly replay the same music. use the site to find new music. that's just my opinion on it.
        trafficlight 17y ago
        The old site was about discovery. I found more new music through the old T61 than any other way I've tried. New t61 doesn't provide a very good method of discovery. It's hard to see which artists are related.
bjplink 17y ago
The author of this post has nailed this on the head. Without viewable lists the discovery part of thesixtyone seems to be lost. I was/am a big fan of the site but this new UI has kind of sucked the wind out of it for me. I feel like thesixtyone is now an extremely unintuitive web-based version of iTunes that I have absolutely no control over. Or, even worse, a weird music centered web screensaver. The interface is definitely slick and would have made a great alternate means of using the site but as the sole method of getting around it might be a bit too cumbersome. I suppose, as with all things, people will get used to this and simmer down... at least I hope so for the sake of the folks behind the site.
yannis 17y ago
I feel as strongly as the author that the new UI basically screwed up the 'character' of the site, but most importantly its usability. For the first time in the last three months I did not spent time on the site. The new UI looks good but it doesn't flow well. In any case it is my strong belief that any site redesign should be incremental and not as dramatic as this one.
- ChrisRicca 17y ago
  Anecdotally, I had the same experience as well. I usually have t61 on most of the day (including the first day I ever used the old interface). I purposefully didn't use http://old.thesixtyone.com/ http://old.thesixtyone.com/, to see if using the new interface stuck. It didn't.
fascinated 17y ago
People really hate change. I am sure t61 team will fix the smaller issues around the design, but I think the new UI is likely here to stay.
- orblivion 17y ago
  Well, the business should probably be interested in what their users hate.
jerf 17y ago
This site has been hacked. I'm not jumping through the hoops to get a login to post a comment. View source and search over it for "viagra". Or turn off javascript (used to hide the links) and you can see it. Browser beware, though I think this is just a wordpress hack.
trafficlight 17y ago
The problem here is not that there is change, but the manner in which the site was changed. I'm going to repost my comment from the earlier T61 post because I think it's relevant. As a relatively new artist (about a year), thesixtyone has been an amazing place. I met a lot of new people, generated interest in my music and learned a lot from the other artists there. With the redesign that's all gone. All of the community and social aspects of the site have disappeared and we are left staring a giant background image. I didn't go to the sixtyone to look at cover art. I went to listen to music and to discuss it with my friends and fans. The other thing I find baffling is that they were making real money with tip and album system. Fans were actually supporting the artists directly. It was working. That feature has been buried in this design. And, by burying the discussion between artists and fans, they have effectively killed the primary reason to tip an artist. The worst part about it is that James and Sam don't talk with their absolutely fanatical users. There was no mention that a redesign this drastic was going to happen. There was no beta period for testing. All of those people commenting on the T61 Facebook page are their true fans. James and Sam haven't said a single word.
spydez 17y ago
If the author reads HN.... You've been hacked. Try visiting your site with JavaScript disabled: http://imgur.com/GkFJ7 http://imgur.com/GkFJ7 ...unless you're trying to up your SEO with the Viagra crowd. Tried to comment this on the blog, but registration is turned off. Sending an email at the "contact me" page a note...
- pbailey 17y ago
  changed comments and found the code in my header. thx
  - FiReaNG3L 17y ago
    Still there
    - spydez 17y ago
      Gone now.
mattwdelong 17y ago
This letter is very contradictory to the tweet I sent out earlier today: @jzy That is a wicked UX. Love the website. Re: http://thesixtyone.com/ http://thesixtyone.com/ (http://twitter.com/mattwdelong/status/8037231259 http://twitter.com/mattwdelong/status/8037231259) Reminds me of the uproar when Facebook makes changes; go with it people. On another note, if it WASN'T for this change, I wouldn't know about this site. I listened to it for a couple hours today and then tossed the link to a musician friend of mine who is well entrenched in the Atlantic Canadian music scene.
- bugs 17y ago
  If this is the first time using the site I could see not having a problem but I stopped using the site when they first made heavy javascript visualizations automatically occur after a certain time. I saw that there was a new UI and went to check it out today and I must say it is awful, it took me a minute to find where to login and once I logged in the reputation points for songs started appearing in the middle of the page (used to be at the bottom right and weren't really annoying), and the whole thing just seems terrible and I can't even use it.
- pwmanagerdied 17y ago
  That's a terrible justification. I've never seen the site before today, but from reading the other comments it sounds like it wasn't just an insignificant interface change, as was generally the case with Facebook, but a dramatic change in the of the site.
- dan_the_welder 17y ago
  Facebook changes have been incremental. This may as well be a completely different site.
srini 17y ago
I'm all for new layouts and ideas - people will get over changes like this. Facebook redesigns have taught us many times. From what I can tell though, Sam and James could've done a much better job of communicating and working through the changes with their current users, especially power users. A "what's changed" and why guide would've been useful; the one blog post they wrote is not sufficient.
- latortuga 17y ago
  Facebook never scrapped their entire UI and eliminated wall posts.
ChrisRicca 17y ago
For those of you who haven't used the site before, the old version is at http://old.thesixtyone.com/ http://old.thesixtyone.com/ for you to explore.
- dc2k08 17y ago
  Spot the difference: http://meccho.com/ http://meccho.com/
alextgordon 17y ago
This is a definite win for thesixtyone. Thanks to the publicity surrounding the change (whether negative or positive), a whole lot of new users have been introduced to it. Existing users still have http://old.thesixtyone.com/ http://old.thesixtyone.com/ to fall back on. And if the new site doesn't work out, they can always switch it back.
fascinated 17y ago
I think the author may also like a faster horse
jmtame 17y ago
on a positive note, i tend to discover more music with the new layout. and i take time to enjoy the discovery process a bit more, rather than rush through it.
pbailey 17y ago
@spydez thanks for pointing out that my site was hacked. any idea how i remove it? (i'm just a musician, not a webdev)
- est 17y ago
  search for "graduate.asu.edu" in your database and public_html directory. cd dir_my_website_installed grep -R "graduate.asu.edu" *.*
  - pbailey 17y ago
    thanks
chirplace 17y ago
the new site is nice-ish, but without question the prior site is superior...vastly so. why make such a huge divergence from the prior design? its a step backwards - I hate to say it. The new site is a tv station...that's not progress. However, I do see how - like a tv station - they may be looking at this from an ad persepctive...
bsstoner 17y ago
I've spent more time on the site today than I have any other day in the past. My problem before was that I would quickly scan through artist names/song titles and listen to one here or there and then move on. Now I give almost every song a chance before I go to the next. I get instant visual connection with each artist via the high-res pic, and i'm diving deeper into learning about artists with the little bios and pics that pop up during playback. This is a win for music discovery UI's, even though it may be a loss for the social network aspects of their site.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
latortuga 17y ago
Wow this is incredibly timely. A coworker and I listened to the sixty one non stop last summer in the office and it sort of dropped off after a few months. Today of all days we wonder what that site is up to and cry when we see the new UI. I can't understand why they made such a huge UI shift but I really can't stand the new design.
Vindexus 17y ago
Here is my thought process in trying to navigate the new site. I'm typing it up as I go through it so it's very rant-like: This new UI is a nightmare to navigate. I was trying to listen to some songs I had saved. Where are my saved songs? I guess I'll go to my profile. Hmmm, no "Saved" link. History seems close enough. Not exactly what I'm looking for but some of the songs are there. I guess I'll remake my saved list. Maybe this "+" symbol? Nope, that's for playlists. Okay, close enough. How do I find the old songs I liked that I want to put on my playlist? Where's the search? How do I navigate by category? I guess I'll click explore. Well that took me to another page and started playing a different song. Definitely not what I wanted. At least I found the "search" link in the "explore" dropdown. Well, this search sucks. I'm trying to find The Bloody Beetroots so I search for "bloody". It brings up a list of songs with bloody in them. Fair enough. I'll just click "artist" to search for artists. Nothing happened. Does this mean it timed out? Are there no results? Screw this I just want to listen to the two songs I got into my playlist. Shit where is my playlist? I guess go back to my profile. Ah there it is. I just click on this song to play it. Good good. I'd like to skip to the next song in my playlist. How about this giant green arrow button pointing to the right? Nope, that just stopped the song. Nothing else happened. Ah, it's because I was on the last song. Well back to my profile to get to the first song. Screw this.
jmtame 17y ago
this design actually makes more sense in my mind. i used the old site mostly to replay my favorites until i got tired of them. i think they want you to take that behavior off the site and onto your mobile devices (so download or buy the song if you prefer to listen to them on autoplay). i think the site pushes you fully in the direction of new music discovery, and i welcome that change. i've discovered much more music since the site changed, my habits are completely different now.

39 points by clistctrl 17y ago

I find the new site to be one of the most beautiful, and innovative sites I have yet to seen. Unfortunately they gave up a site with fantastic usability, and many users are up in arms about this. So up in arms they're spreading the word about how much they detest the new layout which is having the effect of bringing in record number of listeners. The entire scenario is extremely interesting.

_Lemon_ 17y ago
I agree. Wow. What a site! What's wrong with it? (are my thoughts) Only a few minor issues with usability though, like "what does this button do" how do I "find a different category of music" that was solved by clicking a couple of buttons.
- trafficlight 17y ago
  If it's your first time on the site, nothing is wrong with it. It looks awesome. But if you've been using it for a year or two, you'll find that all of the social interaction between fans and artists is gone. The group interaction is gone. Your saved songs are gone. It's a very pretty shell of what it used to be.
  - jmtame 17y ago
    i thought my saved songs were gone too. they're not, they're just in "history." and if you use your keyboard to tap next, it should persist on that window and not switch album covers. at least it was for me.
    - bugs 17y ago
      In my history it is the history of hearted songs not my saved songs which before I stopped using thesixtyone I used as a playlist on shuffle (I never really liked tagging songs).
      - jmtame 17y ago
        i think the new site is about discovery. if you like the music, stick it on your iphone or listen to it in itunes--it probably consumes a lot of bandwidth to constantly replay the same music. use the site to find new music. that's just my opinion on it.
        trafficlight 17y ago
        The old site was about discovery. I found more new music through the old T61 than any other way I've tried. New t61 doesn't provide a very good method of discovery. It's hard to see which artists are related.

bjplink 17y ago

The author of this post has nailed this on the head. Without viewable lists the discovery part of thesixtyone seems to be lost. I was/am a big fan of the site but this new UI has kind of sucked the wind out of it for me. I feel like thesixtyone is now an extremely unintuitive web-based version of iTunes that I have absolutely no control over. Or, even worse, a weird music centered web screensaver. The interface is definitely slick and would have made a great alternate means of using the site but as the sole method of getting around it might be a bit too cumbersome. I suppose, as with all things, people will get used to this and simmer down... at least I hope so for the sake of the folks behind the site.

yannis 17y ago

I feel as strongly as the author that the new UI basically screwed up the 'character' of the site, but most importantly its usability. For the first time in the last three months I did not spent time on the site. The new UI looks good but it doesn't flow well. In any case it is my strong belief that any site redesign should be incremental and not as dramatic as this one.

ChrisRicca 17y ago
Anecdotally, I had the same experience as well. I usually have t61 on most of the day (including the first day I ever used the old interface). I purposefully didn't use http://old.thesixtyone.com/ http://old.thesixtyone.com/, to see if using the new interface stuck. It didn't.

fascinated 17y ago

People really hate change. I am sure t61 team will fix the smaller issues around the design, but I think the new UI is likely here to stay.

orblivion 17y ago
Well, the business should probably be interested in what their users hate.

jerf 17y ago

This site has been hacked. I'm not jumping through the hoops to get a login to post a comment. View source and search over it for "viagra". Or turn off javascript (used to hide the links) and you can see it. Browser beware, though I think this is just a wordpress hack.

trafficlight 17y ago

The problem here is not that there is change, but the manner in which the site was changed. I'm going to repost my comment from the earlier T61 post because I think it's relevant. As a relatively new artist (about a year), thesixtyone has been an amazing place. I met a lot of new people, generated interest in my music and learned a lot from the other artists there. With the redesign that's all gone. All of the community and social aspects of the site have disappeared and we are left staring a giant background image. I didn't go to the sixtyone to look at cover art. I went to listen to music and to discuss it with my friends and fans. The other thing I find baffling is that they were making real money with tip and album system. Fans were actually supporting the artists directly. It was working. That feature has been buried in this design. And, by burying the discussion between artists and fans, they have effectively killed the primary reason to tip an artist. The worst part about it is that James and Sam don't talk with their absolutely fanatical users. There was no mention that a redesign this drastic was going to happen. There was no beta period for testing. All of those people commenting on the T61 Facebook page are their true fans. James and Sam haven't said a single word.

spydez 17y ago

If the author reads HN.... You've been hacked. Try visiting your site with JavaScript disabled: http://imgur.com/GkFJ7 http://imgur.com/GkFJ7 ...unless you're trying to up your SEO with the Viagra crowd. Tried to comment this on the blog, but registration is turned off. Sending an email at the "contact me" page a note...

pbailey 17y ago
changed comments and found the code in my header. thx
- FiReaNG3L 17y ago
  Still there
  - spydez 17y ago
    Gone now.

mattwdelong 17y ago

This letter is very contradictory to the tweet I sent out earlier today: @jzy That is a wicked UX. Love the website. Re: http://thesixtyone.com/ http://thesixtyone.com/ (http://twitter.com/mattwdelong/status/8037231259 http://twitter.com/mattwdelong/status/8037231259) Reminds me of the uproar when Facebook makes changes; go with it people. On another note, if it WASN'T for this change, I wouldn't know about this site. I listened to it for a couple hours today and then tossed the link to a musician friend of mine who is well entrenched in the Atlantic Canadian music scene.

bugs 17y ago
If this is the first time using the site I could see not having a problem but I stopped using the site when they first made heavy javascript visualizations automatically occur after a certain time. I saw that there was a new UI and went to check it out today and I must say it is awful, it took me a minute to find where to login and once I logged in the reputation points for songs started appearing in the middle of the page (used to be at the bottom right and weren't really annoying), and the whole thing just seems terrible and I can't even use it.
pwmanagerdied 17y ago
That's a terrible justification. I've never seen the site before today, but from reading the other comments it sounds like it wasn't just an insignificant interface change, as was generally the case with Facebook, but a dramatic change in the of the site.
dan_the_welder 17y ago
Facebook changes have been incremental. This may as well be a completely different site.

srini 17y ago

I'm all for new layouts and ideas - people will get over changes like this. Facebook redesigns have taught us many times. From what I can tell though, Sam and James could've done a much better job of communicating and working through the changes with their current users, especially power users. A "what's changed" and why guide would've been useful; the one blog post they wrote is not sufficient.

latortuga 17y ago
Facebook never scrapped their entire UI and eliminated wall posts.

ChrisRicca 17y ago

For those of you who haven't used the site before, the old version is at http://old.thesixtyone.com/ http://old.thesixtyone.com/ for you to explore.

dc2k08 17y ago
Spot the difference: http://meccho.com/ http://meccho.com/

alextgordon 17y ago

This is a definite win for thesixtyone. Thanks to the publicity surrounding the change (whether negative or positive), a whole lot of new users have been introduced to it. Existing users still have http://old.thesixtyone.com/ http://old.thesixtyone.com/ to fall back on. And if the new site doesn't work out, they can always switch it back.

fascinated 17y ago

I think the author may also like a faster horse

jmtame 17y ago

on a positive note, i tend to discover more music with the new layout. and i take time to enjoy the discovery process a bit more, rather than rush through it.

pbailey 17y ago

@spydez thanks for pointing out that my site was hacked. any idea how i remove it? (i'm just a musician, not a webdev)

est 17y ago
search for "graduate.asu.edu" in your database and public_html directory. cd dir_my_website_installed grep -R "graduate.asu.edu" *.*
- pbailey 17y ago
  thanks

chirplace 17y ago

the new site is nice-ish, but without question the prior site is superior...vastly so. why make such a huge divergence from the prior design? its a step backwards - I hate to say it. The new site is a tv station...that's not progress. However, I do see how - like a tv station - they may be looking at this from an ad persepctive...

bsstoner 17y ago

I've spent more time on the site today than I have any other day in the past. My problem before was that I would quickly scan through artist names/song titles and listen to one here or there and then move on. Now I give almost every song a chance before I go to the next. I get instant visual connection with each artist via the high-res pic, and i'm diving deeper into learning about artists with the little bios and pics that pop up during playback. This is a win for music discovery UI's, even though it may be a loss for the social network aspects of their site.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

latortuga 17y ago

Wow this is incredibly timely. A coworker and I listened to the sixty one non stop last summer in the office and it sort of dropped off after a few months. Today of all days we wonder what that site is up to and cry when we see the new UI. I can't understand why they made such a huge UI shift but I really can't stand the new design.

Vindexus 17y ago

Here is my thought process in trying to navigate the new site. I'm typing it up as I go through it so it's very rant-like: This new UI is a nightmare to navigate. I was trying to listen to some songs I had saved. Where are my saved songs? I guess I'll go to my profile. Hmmm, no "Saved" link. History seems close enough. Not exactly what I'm looking for but some of the songs are there. I guess I'll remake my saved list. Maybe this "+" symbol? Nope, that's for playlists. Okay, close enough. How do I find the old songs I liked that I want to put on my playlist? Where's the search? How do I navigate by category? I guess I'll click explore. Well that took me to another page and started playing a different song. Definitely not what I wanted. At least I found the "search" link in the "explore" dropdown. Well, this search sucks. I'm trying to find The Bloody Beetroots so I search for "bloody". It brings up a list of songs with bloody in them. Fair enough. I'll just click "artist" to search for artists. Nothing happened. Does this mean it timed out? Are there no results? Screw this I just want to listen to the two songs I got into my playlist. Shit where is my playlist? I guess go back to my profile. Ah there it is. I just click on this song to play it. Good good. I'd like to skip to the next song in my playlist. How about this giant green arrow button pointing to the right? Nope, that just stopped the song. Nothing else happened. Ah, it's because I was on the last song. Well back to my profile to get to the first song. Screw this.

jmtame 17y ago

this design actually makes more sense in my mind. i used the old site mostly to replay my favorites until i got tired of them. i think they want you to take that behavior off the site and onto your mobile devices (so download or buy the song if you prefer to listen to them on autoplay). i think the site pushes you fully in the direction of new music discovery, and i welcome that change. i've discovered much more music since the site changed, my habits are completely different now.