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Show HN: The Artist Hunt – An intuitive way to discover music

31 points by oscarn 12y ago

dangerlibrary 12y ago
A site focused on UX shouldn't hijack my back button.
danbee 12y ago
HOLY SHIT WHERE'S THAT MUSIC COMING FROM?!? [hits close button]
- danbee 12y ago
  Yeah sorry, perhaps I was a little bit harsh but I had the volume up on my speakers! I do however think it's very rude of a web page to start playing audio when it's opened and I'm glad to see that it's been fixed.
23andwalnut 12y ago
Beautiful app. I'm not sure music should start playing immediately. I'll press play when I'm ready... Where are you getting the data from?
- gothep 12y ago
  One of the creators here. Thank you! We removed the playing song in the beginning! The data is from the Spotify web api! :)
normloman 12y ago
1. I can't hear sound in Firefox. I am stuck running an older version at work (25) if that makes a difference. Maybe you don't want to support older browsers, so forgive me I'm nitpicking. 2. So I gather the arrow keys help you find related artists. What do I do if I don't like an artist? 3. It says I can jump to an artist by searching in the text field. Where the hell is that? 4. The back button thing, previously mentioned. It's good to keep directions simple, but you've gone to far. From reading the directions, I can't figure out what this does, why it's useful, or even how to use it (where is this text field?)
- zeeed 12y ago
  great site. took some time to look through the tutorial and love the navigation. the ux is completely OK for discovery and the value added is great. Same problem for me in firefox (latest version): no text field, means I'm stuck with a certain style on initial launch.
minimaxir 12y ago
It's difficult to call a website intuitive when you have to provide a tutorial on launch.
- oscarn 12y ago
  You are right, intuitive is not the right word. Mechanical and low friction (after a while) though.
coderzach 12y ago
Some feedback, mostly on the UX: So I dismissed the instructions without reading them thoroughly. Everything was super confusing and it was unclear what up or down did, other than start playing different music. It seems weird that up chooses a new artist and down chooses the next song. I heard a song I like, accidentally pressed down, and then up went, in an attempt to get back, but instead was sent to another artist. Super confusing. The back button randomly changes artists. This is also super confusing. Couldn't you have a button for that? When I click on one of the albums, the transition doesn't make it clear that it's now playing what you clicked on, and the previous list is now GONE. I assumed clicking would "select" the album. Also, once I've clicked an album, there's no way to get back. And finally, my general feeling about the interface is that it's too focused on "power users", not being quick and easy to understand. I doubt this is something that needs really easy hotkeys, and if it does, it should be complimented with buttons that do the same things. Don't let this feedback discourage you. I think you're solving a real problem, it's just hard to get past the UX. My advice would to to do some user testing. When you're building a super experimental UI, that isn't like anything else in existence, you probably want to verify that it doesn't completely confuse people. tl;dr Do some user testing and you'll see most of these problems for yourself.
- oscarn 12y ago
  Super interesting feedback, huge thanks. Some of the things you mention are actually relics from when this was a game, that limited how you can browse. (The initial idea was a game where you browsed as fast (ie few clicks) as possible from one artist to the other, but the feedback we got indicated that the discovery part was much more interesting) But then again, we definitely get lost in our own (power user) perspective. We were dead set on using arrow keys as main browsing technique to start with, to get that mechanical and low friction feel. Not great for most users though, probably.
  - flanbiscuit 12y ago
    I was also confused. I think the fact that you don't ask the user to put in an artist from the very beginning is what contributed to my confusion. I didn't know how to switch to a different genre/era of music so I thought I had to navigate there somehow. It took me a little while to finally see the "enter an artist" text. Once I put in an artist (I used Nirvana) it started to make sense to me a bit. edit: played around with it some more and now that I get the hang of it and know that I can easily change my starting artist, it's really cool!
Wilduck 12y ago
To disagree with many of the other comments here, I found the interface pretty great. My only issue was that I couldn't figure out how to get a seed artist in a genre I liked. Once I realized the Artist name at the top was also a search bar, I was flying. One feature I wish it had, were a way to go back down to the previous set of artist choices. Other than that, I've been enjoying exploring music with this.
oscarn 12y ago
Thanks for the feedback everyone! Pushing the latest adjustments to heroku (yay for Meteor.js support!) as we speak.
Paul_S 12y ago
Where do you get the recommendations from? Where is the about page?
- oscarn 12y ago
  I guess an about page is on the todo list for 1.0 :) We are using the Spotify Web API for everything: music (nicely cut 30s previews of songs), artist relations, images.

31 points by oscarn 12y ago

dangerlibrary 12y ago

A site focused on UX shouldn't hijack my back button.

danbee 12y ago

HOLY SHIT WHERE'S THAT MUSIC COMING FROM?!? [hits close button]

danbee 12y ago
Yeah sorry, perhaps I was a little bit harsh but I had the volume up on my speakers! I do however think it's very rude of a web page to start playing audio when it's opened and I'm glad to see that it's been fixed.

23andwalnut 12y ago

Beautiful app. I'm not sure music should start playing immediately. I'll press play when I'm ready... Where are you getting the data from?

gothep 12y ago
One of the creators here. Thank you! We removed the playing song in the beginning! The data is from the Spotify web api! :)

normloman 12y ago

1. I can't hear sound in Firefox. I am stuck running an older version at work (25) if that makes a difference. Maybe you don't want to support older browsers, so forgive me I'm nitpicking. 2. So I gather the arrow keys help you find related artists. What do I do if I don't like an artist? 3. It says I can jump to an artist by searching in the text field. Where the hell is that? 4. The back button thing, previously mentioned. It's good to keep directions simple, but you've gone to far. From reading the directions, I can't figure out what this does, why it's useful, or even how to use it (where is this text field?)

zeeed 12y ago
great site. took some time to look through the tutorial and love the navigation. the ux is completely OK for discovery and the value added is great. Same problem for me in firefox (latest version): no text field, means I'm stuck with a certain style on initial launch.

minimaxir 12y ago

It's difficult to call a website intuitive when you have to provide a tutorial on launch.

oscarn 12y ago
You are right, intuitive is not the right word. Mechanical and low friction (after a while) though.

coderzach 12y ago

Some feedback, mostly on the UX: So I dismissed the instructions without reading them thoroughly. Everything was super confusing and it was unclear what up or down did, other than start playing different music. It seems weird that up chooses a new artist and down chooses the next song. I heard a song I like, accidentally pressed down, and then up went, in an attempt to get back, but instead was sent to another artist. Super confusing. The back button randomly changes artists. This is also super confusing. Couldn't you have a button for that? When I click on one of the albums, the transition doesn't make it clear that it's now playing what you clicked on, and the previous list is now GONE. I assumed clicking would "select" the album. Also, once I've clicked an album, there's no way to get back. And finally, my general feeling about the interface is that it's too focused on "power users", not being quick and easy to understand. I doubt this is something that needs really easy hotkeys, and if it does, it should be complimented with buttons that do the same things. Don't let this feedback discourage you. I think you're solving a real problem, it's just hard to get past the UX. My advice would to to do some user testing. When you're building a super experimental UI, that isn't like anything else in existence, you probably want to verify that it doesn't completely confuse people. tl;dr Do some user testing and you'll see most of these problems for yourself.

oscarn 12y ago
Super interesting feedback, huge thanks. Some of the things you mention are actually relics from when this was a game, that limited how you can browse. (The initial idea was a game where you browsed as fast (ie few clicks) as possible from one artist to the other, but the feedback we got indicated that the discovery part was much more interesting) But then again, we definitely get lost in our own (power user) perspective. We were dead set on using arrow keys as main browsing technique to start with, to get that mechanical and low friction feel. Not great for most users though, probably.
- flanbiscuit 12y ago
  I was also confused. I think the fact that you don't ask the user to put in an artist from the very beginning is what contributed to my confusion. I didn't know how to switch to a different genre/era of music so I thought I had to navigate there somehow. It took me a little while to finally see the "enter an artist" text. Once I put in an artist (I used Nirvana) it started to make sense to me a bit. edit: played around with it some more and now that I get the hang of it and know that I can easily change my starting artist, it's really cool!

Wilduck 12y ago

To disagree with many of the other comments here, I found the interface pretty great. My only issue was that I couldn't figure out how to get a seed artist in a genre I liked. Once I realized the Artist name at the top was also a search bar, I was flying. One feature I wish it had, were a way to go back down to the previous set of artist choices. Other than that, I've been enjoying exploring music with this.

oscarn 12y ago

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Pushing the latest adjustments to heroku (yay for Meteor.js support!) as we speak.

Paul_S 12y ago

Where do you get the recommendations from? Where is the about page?

oscarn 12y ago
I guess an about page is on the todo list for 1.0 :) We are using the Spotify Web API for everything: music (nicely cut 30s previews of songs), artist relations, images.