4 ms·

IMO, Spotify has some really large gaps in usability. In general, there is no good concept of a music collection (despite the UI having words "Collection" and

IMO, Spotify has some really large gaps in usability. In general, there is no good concept of a music collection (despite the UI having words "Collection" and "Library" in it). While you don't own albums in Spotify, I still sorely miss that concept. Starring entire albums makes for a fairly useless/unwieldy Starred playlist, so that's a no go. I've resorted to starring single songs, then later selecting a song from the starred list and then switching to playing the whole album (if I starred the first track of the album, I have to select another album track, then back to first track, to make it play the album and not just continue on the Starred playlist). Basically, where's my damn list of Artists and Albums I've liked? In iTunes (or mp3 folders back in the day), I would scan the list of artists and select an album to play. No, I do not want to have an all songs/genre playlist and then sort by artist and then page thru pages of tracks. The mobile app has poor information architecture. Going back to the starred playlist (or any other playlist) takes 6 taps if I'm on the info screen. Oh, I freaking hate the mobile info screen. To me, it always feels awkward to hit the song name at the bottom to bring up the "now playing" screen, then tapping "i" to show the info screen, just to select the album or the artist of the song I'm listening to. As far as I can tell, the whole point of the "i" button is to allow me to see the album art--but, bizarrely, seeing album art is the default (so always requires an extra tap to do anything related to artist or album). Basically, it's a damn tapfest. It's frustrating when you want to switch songs or do some navigation quickly--for example, while in the gym on an elliptical or while running. Also, there is no search history and the app is forgetful. Periodically, at unknown intervals, the mobile app forgets the album/song I was playing, and I have to re-enter a long artist name all over again. Not to mention there is no fuzzy search. Yeah, try spelling "Irresistible Force" correctly, quickly. There are the things that make Spotify merely a very convenient music discovery service, as opposed to a complete, fulfilling replacement to owning your own music library. Finally, there is general bugs, like crashing and streaming getting stuck now and again, which can be very frustrating in the middle of an album (the next song streams, this song is stuck).

secstate 13y ago
Um. Maybe you covered this, but have you ever just saved an album as a playlist? Actually, in this regard, I think Spotify discovered the post-physical-media world: An artist's latest album is just a playlist they put together with some artwork. So obviously simple.
- disposition2 13y ago
  But who wants to scroll through hundreds of 'playlists' when you just want to know what albums you like. Coming from GMusic, this is one thing I miss...the separation of albums and playists. I feel OPs pain, which is why I'm slowly working on a project that would make Spotify more useful for how I listen to music: better search, more detailed song / album / artist info...granted it'll just be a web app but it can be a real chore sometimes to use the mobile app for searching and browsing (see just about any Classical or Jazz for an example).
- growse 13y ago
  Whilst it is simple, it's important to note that the curating of an album is an important creative output of a band/group/artist, the other being the actual tracks. What I really want from Spotify (or any other music service) is the ability to have a playlist of albums, not a play list of tracks. Spotify has no concept of an album as a single entity, so I end up using the service in spite of this. This might be down to how I listen to music, but I'd guess that my album-centric view of music isn't particularly unique.
  - ecnahc515 13y ago
    Something along those lines, but I'd like playlists of playlists. Easily compose whatever I want that way.
- lobster_johnson 13y ago
  Saving playlists assumes that you can actually find them again. I use one playlist per artist/composer, organized in per-genre folders, and it's a pain to maintain. First, because I end up with a ton of playlists, and secondly because I have to manually alphabetize their order. If I don't order them alphabetically I can't find them, since Spotify has no playlist search/filter. (For some reason the search box autocompletes other people's published playlists, but not your own.) I agree with the parent, Spotify's playlist-oriented design is a major UI problem.
- lazerwalker 13y ago
  I think calling an artist's latest album nothing more than "just a playlist they put together with some artwork" is doing a disservice to the amount of work that goes into consciously composing and crafting an album, at least for many artists and genres of music. The same could be said for the skill that goes into making a good playlist, sure, but in general there's still a difference between someone curating existing music and someone writing new songs from scratch and figuring out how to arrange them.
dmart 13y ago
They are attempting to implement iTunes-style artist/album searching with their upcoming Collection feature. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be going well - I'm in the beta for it, and as of right now: * The saved songs page is an unsortable, unfilterable static HTML page. * The saved albums page doesn't cache any album art, and going to an album page doesn't display any album art. Again, no filtering. * The saved artists page also doesn't cache artist images or allow for filtering. The beta's been going on for two months and so far there has been no patch notes, no updates, and basically no communication with testers.
badclient 13y ago
THANK YOU! I've been a loyal spotify premium member for two years going and it seems like their products are on a DOWNWARD trajectory. The mobile app used to be just fine till they updated with messed up information and ux flow. Depressing!

secstate 13y ago

Um. Maybe you covered this, but have you ever just saved an album as a playlist? Actually, in this regard, I think Spotify discovered the post-physical-media world: An artist's latest album is just a playlist they put together with some artwork. So obviously simple.

disposition2 13y ago
But who wants to scroll through hundreds of 'playlists' when you just want to know what albums you like. Coming from GMusic, this is one thing I miss...the separation of albums and playists. I feel OPs pain, which is why I'm slowly working on a project that would make Spotify more useful for how I listen to music: better search, more detailed song / album / artist info...granted it'll just be a web app but it can be a real chore sometimes to use the mobile app for searching and browsing (see just about any Classical or Jazz for an example).
growse 13y ago
Whilst it is simple, it's important to note that the curating of an album is an important creative output of a band/group/artist, the other being the actual tracks. What I really want from Spotify (or any other music service) is the ability to have a playlist of albums, not a play list of tracks. Spotify has no concept of an album as a single entity, so I end up using the service in spite of this. This might be down to how I listen to music, but I'd guess that my album-centric view of music isn't particularly unique.
- ecnahc515 13y ago
  Something along those lines, but I'd like playlists of playlists. Easily compose whatever I want that way.
lobster_johnson 13y ago
Saving playlists assumes that you can actually find them again. I use one playlist per artist/composer, organized in per-genre folders, and it's a pain to maintain. First, because I end up with a ton of playlists, and secondly because I have to manually alphabetize their order. If I don't order them alphabetically I can't find them, since Spotify has no playlist search/filter. (For some reason the search box autocompletes other people's published playlists, but not your own.) I agree with the parent, Spotify's playlist-oriented design is a major UI problem.
lazerwalker 13y ago
I think calling an artist's latest album nothing more than "just a playlist they put together with some artwork" is doing a disservice to the amount of work that goes into consciously composing and crafting an album, at least for many artists and genres of music. The same could be said for the skill that goes into making a good playlist, sure, but in general there's still a difference between someone curating existing music and someone writing new songs from scratch and figuring out how to arrange them.

dmart 13y ago

They are attempting to implement iTunes-style artist/album searching with their upcoming Collection feature. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be going well - I'm in the beta for it, and as of right now: * The saved songs page is an unsortable, unfilterable static HTML page. * The saved albums page doesn't cache any album art, and going to an album page doesn't display any album art. Again, no filtering. * The saved artists page also doesn't cache artist images or allow for filtering. The beta's been going on for two months and so far there has been no patch notes, no updates, and basically no communication with testers.

badclient 13y ago

THANK YOU! I've been a loyal spotify premium member for two years going and it seems like their products are on a DOWNWARD trajectory. The mobile app used to be just fine till they updated with messed up information and ux flow. Depressing!