7 ms·

"How can such a simple concept (listen to music) get so many basics so wrong and have such glaring bugs?" Spotify internally has a model where they have a larg

by fleddr 4y ago

"How can such a simple concept (listen to music) get so many basics so wrong and have such glaring bugs?" Spotify internally has a model where they have a large number of small teams where each is responsible for only a tiny part of the experience. Possibly this leads to a lack of a coherent experience. The other factor may be the constant experimentation. Frankly, 20-30 year old media players were better. So what the point of it all is...I have no idea. Quite similar experience with the Netflix app where it seems every single day I have to wonder where they put my currently watching series. Ironically, we look up to these companies for their engineering culture. We really shouldn't. It's a hot mess. Toy tech. Deeply unserious about quality and customers.

dataengineer56 4y ago
The constant moving of the Netflix "currently watching" pane is a huge annoyance for me, especially because it looks the same as every other pane ("horror films", "British comedy" etc). My grandma can't figure it out, she needs to be able to press the same buttons every time she goes on the app and Netflix doesn't let her do that.
- MandieD 4y ago
  “She needs to be able to press the same buttons every time she goes on that app and [insert app name here] doesn’t let her do that” must sum up at least 90% of user problems.
- fleddr 4y ago
  Not even episode syncing works (for me). I clearly finished watching an episode yet regularly on another device the next episode would be the one I already watched. Just one of many basic things that doesn't work. I forgot to add that not only will they change "currently playing" every 3 secs, also the cover art of each series changes, as an A/B test. So if you use that as a visual confirmation, well tough luck. In the case of Netflix, there's a reason for all of this. They don't really want you to go and sniff around the catalog in easy ways. You might discover its not great. Best to throw a bunch of random stuff in your face to give you the illusion of a fabulously rich and "dynamic" experience. The distraction UX of Netflix is intentional. In the case of Spotify it's mostly incompetence.
  - dataexporter 4y ago
    Agree about the syncing - its not just you. I click on "Continue Watching" for a TV series that I have been watching - only to realize about a minute or so into it that I had already seen the episode the previous day. This has happened to me so many times that I would have wasted close to an hour just moving back and forth between episodes.
    - fleddr 4y ago
      Exact same experience here. I even let episodes roll past the credits to the absolute end. And it still doesn't work.
- flyingpenguin 4y ago
  Not going to defend it because I agree. But if you are interested in the why of "currently watching" moving all over the place, you'll notice its harder to find the longer its been since you opened netflix combined with the faster you start looking for it. Different part of Netflixes backend respond at different speeds. The call for "Top in the US" is likely cached and up to date, the call for "What did dataengineer56 stop watching" is probably cold and slow. This leaves netflix with a few options, and what they seem to have settled on is "Show everything that has loaded, and quietly insert the stuff that loads later into parts of the screen the customer isn't looking at, so our entire app seems to load instantly"
bfeynman 4y ago
Anecdotally I disagree. I think I have a pretty eclectic taste, and spotify has helped me discover tons of new songs, but also still keeps my daily mixes coherent. I find myself listening to their autogenerated ones most of the time since they are very easy to craft and extend.
- nopeYouAreWrong 4y ago
  I also love spotify as a general product. But the UX grievances are fair and representative of tge standard product thrash where far too many people are involved in making design decisions that ultimately end up punishing users
zajio1am 4y ago
> Frankly, 20-30 year old media players were better. So what the point of it all is...I have no idea. I would say that Spotify does not compete with traditional media players, it competes with radio. If i want to listen to my favorite songs, there is no reason to use Spotify for that. But if i want something different-but-similar and i do not really know what, because i am not very interested in music, then discoverability of new music by Spotify is game-changing.
- xiwenc 4y ago
  Spotify should serve both audiences: consistency and discover new ones. I think Apple Music got it right. I like how you can start a radio of any song. Or just play your own favorites.
  - TingPing 4y ago
    Spotify has always had "Song Radio".
    - calebh 4y ago
      For me song radio simply plays songs that I've already listened to but are similar to the current song. Completely useless for discovering new music.
rpep 4y ago
The most frustrating one for me is that saving an album doesn’t add the Artist to your artists list in your Library.
- Slow_Hand 4y ago
  You have to ‘follow’ the artist by going to their profile and clicking ‘follow’. I much prefer this functionality because liking an album or a song does not mean I want to be exposed to all new music by the artist.
  - rpep 4y ago
    It makes the library a bit useless though. If I'm offline and want to look for a specific artist's music I have downloaded, if I can't remember the name of the album it's not easily findable.
pc86 4y ago
> Spotify internally has a model where they have a large number of small teams where each is responsible for only a tiny part of the experience. Possibly this leads to a lack of a coherent experience. Which is particularly surprising since they have multiple teams of highly compensated product people who are supposed to be guiding the overall product direction and preventing just that kind of incoherence.
- fleddr 4y ago
  Yes, I forgot to mention that. They have cross cutting orgs too. Which means they reinvented the matrix organization which is the worst of all organizations.

by fleddr 4y ago

dataengineer56 4y ago

The constant moving of the Netflix "currently watching" pane is a huge annoyance for me, especially because it looks the same as every other pane ("horror films", "British comedy" etc). My grandma can't figure it out, she needs to be able to press the same buttons every time she goes on the app and Netflix doesn't let her do that.

MandieD 4y ago
“She needs to be able to press the same buttons every time she goes on that app and [insert app name here] doesn’t let her do that” must sum up at least 90% of user problems.
fleddr 4y ago
Not even episode syncing works (for me). I clearly finished watching an episode yet regularly on another device the next episode would be the one I already watched. Just one of many basic things that doesn't work. I forgot to add that not only will they change "currently playing" every 3 secs, also the cover art of each series changes, as an A/B test. So if you use that as a visual confirmation, well tough luck. In the case of Netflix, there's a reason for all of this. They don't really want you to go and sniff around the catalog in easy ways. You might discover its not great. Best to throw a bunch of random stuff in your face to give you the illusion of a fabulously rich and "dynamic" experience. The distraction UX of Netflix is intentional. In the case of Spotify it's mostly incompetence.
- dataexporter 4y ago
  Agree about the syncing - its not just you. I click on "Continue Watching" for a TV series that I have been watching - only to realize about a minute or so into it that I had already seen the episode the previous day. This has happened to me so many times that I would have wasted close to an hour just moving back and forth between episodes.
  - fleddr 4y ago
    Exact same experience here. I even let episodes roll past the credits to the absolute end. And it still doesn't work.
flyingpenguin 4y ago
Not going to defend it because I agree. But if you are interested in the why of "currently watching" moving all over the place, you'll notice its harder to find the longer its been since you opened netflix combined with the faster you start looking for it. Different part of Netflixes backend respond at different speeds. The call for "Top in the US" is likely cached and up to date, the call for "What did dataengineer56 stop watching" is probably cold and slow. This leaves netflix with a few options, and what they seem to have settled on is "Show everything that has loaded, and quietly insert the stuff that loads later into parts of the screen the customer isn't looking at, so our entire app seems to load instantly"

bfeynman 4y ago

Anecdotally I disagree. I think I have a pretty eclectic taste, and spotify has helped me discover tons of new songs, but also still keeps my daily mixes coherent. I find myself listening to their autogenerated ones most of the time since they are very easy to craft and extend.

nopeYouAreWrong 4y ago
I also love spotify as a general product. But the UX grievances are fair and representative of tge standard product thrash where far too many people are involved in making design decisions that ultimately end up punishing users

zajio1am 4y ago

> Frankly, 20-30 year old media players were better. So what the point of it all is...I have no idea. I would say that Spotify does not compete with traditional media players, it competes with radio. If i want to listen to my favorite songs, there is no reason to use Spotify for that. But if i want something different-but-similar and i do not really know what, because i am not very interested in music, then discoverability of new music by Spotify is game-changing.

xiwenc 4y ago
Spotify should serve both audiences: consistency and discover new ones. I think Apple Music got it right. I like how you can start a radio of any song. Or just play your own favorites.
- TingPing 4y ago
  Spotify has always had "Song Radio".
  - calebh 4y ago
    For me song radio simply plays songs that I've already listened to but are similar to the current song. Completely useless for discovering new music.

rpep 4y ago

The most frustrating one for me is that saving an album doesn’t add the Artist to your artists list in your Library.

Slow_Hand 4y ago
You have to ‘follow’ the artist by going to their profile and clicking ‘follow’. I much prefer this functionality because liking an album or a song does not mean I want to be exposed to all new music by the artist.
- rpep 4y ago
  It makes the library a bit useless though. If I'm offline and want to look for a specific artist's music I have downloaded, if I can't remember the name of the album it's not easily findable.

pc86 4y ago

> Spotify internally has a model where they have a large number of small teams where each is responsible for only a tiny part of the experience. Possibly this leads to a lack of a coherent experience. Which is particularly surprising since they have multiple teams of highly compensated product people who are supposed to be guiding the overall product direction and preventing just that kind of incoherence.

fleddr 4y ago
Yes, I forgot to mention that. They have cross cutting orgs too. Which means they reinvented the matrix organization which is the worst of all organizations.