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Spotify's whole UX is a disaster, and it's puzzling to me why that's the case. They certainly have the resources and the high profile to attract people who can

Spotify's whole UX is a disaster, and it's puzzling to me why that's the case. They certainly have the resources and the high profile to attract people who can fix it. I guess they just don't feel the need.

gherkinnn 5y ago
Who knows what they're optimising for? Other than the start page, Spotify is perfectly fine though.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  There are other issues. The random/shuffle has never worked properly. Why can't a billion dollar company figure out that they just played the same song for me a half hour ago? It is so bad we are drifting away from Spotify after subbing for ten years.
  - relaxing 5y ago
    But again, ask yourself- what are they optimizing for? Entropy, or generating revenue through pushing specific artists?
systemvoltage 5y ago
Try using 2005-era iTunes. Dense interface, everything like a table, clear UX patterns for clicking an album and then listing the songs in that album, no suggestions or lengthening your curated playlist without asking you, no animations or fancy graphics. Ok, it used to crash a lot but that's an orthogonal problem. Unpopular opinion: "Design" is ruining everything that was good. Most suggestions for good "UX/UI" on HackerNews are shit. So are all the articles posted here and advice given. Most UI frameworks suck. The whole thing is rotten to the core.
- mecha_ghidorah 5y ago
  Yeah I've never been an Apple fan, but I used to run iTunes on windows because it was fucking great. Then they added the album view stuff and performance degraded and it became unstable. I use Foobar now and sure Foobar takes a bit of power user level stuff to get it configured exactly how I like but it is a nice tabular music library I can search and then click on stuff to play. No bs fancy crap screwing it up
lancesells 5y ago
I'm not a Spotify user but the news that came out about albums being played with shuffle as default makes me think they don't care about music. Not surprised if everything else is misaligned as well.
- btbuildem 5y ago
  IIRC albums _only_ play on shuffle unless you have a paid subscription. So it may have been some default bleed-thru, not a conscious decision.

gherkinnn 5y ago

Who knows what they're optimising for? Other than the start page, Spotify is perfectly fine though.

datavirtue 5y ago
There are other issues. The random/shuffle has never worked properly. Why can't a billion dollar company figure out that they just played the same song for me a half hour ago? It is so bad we are drifting away from Spotify after subbing for ten years.
- relaxing 5y ago
  But again, ask yourself- what are they optimizing for? Entropy, or generating revenue through pushing specific artists?

systemvoltage 5y ago

Try using 2005-era iTunes. Dense interface, everything like a table, clear UX patterns for clicking an album and then listing the songs in that album, no suggestions or lengthening your curated playlist without asking you, no animations or fancy graphics. Ok, it used to crash a lot but that's an orthogonal problem. Unpopular opinion: "Design" is ruining everything that was good. Most suggestions for good "UX/UI" on HackerNews are shit. So are all the articles posted here and advice given. Most UI frameworks suck. The whole thing is rotten to the core.

mecha_ghidorah 5y ago
Yeah I've never been an Apple fan, but I used to run iTunes on windows because it was fucking great. Then they added the album view stuff and performance degraded and it became unstable. I use Foobar now and sure Foobar takes a bit of power user level stuff to get it configured exactly how I like but it is a nice tabular music library I can search and then click on stuff to play. No bs fancy crap screwing it up

lancesells 5y ago

I'm not a Spotify user but the news that came out about albums being played with shuffle as default makes me think they don't care about music. Not surprised if everything else is misaligned as well.

btbuildem 5y ago
IIRC albums _only_ play on shuffle unless you have a paid subscription. So it may have been some default bleed-thru, not a conscious decision.