Spotify’s UX: Changing for the Better or Worse?
Authors: Michelle Sy, Katherine Liu
If you were to go up to a random person listening to music on the street and ask them what service they were using, chances are they’d say Spotify. With over 356 million users overall and 158 million subscribers compared to only 72 million users on Apple Music, Spotify has taken over as the most popular music streaming service. So what exactly makes Spotify as successful as it has been? Have Spotify UX designers cracked the code?
Ironically, Spotify’s UX is of great controversy. An average user might say that the app is incredibly intuitive, easy to navigate, and aesthetically pleasing. But someone who has seen the platform change over the years might be less pleased with the updates that have been made. A simple search for UX complaints within Spotify subreddits will bring up posts such as this, with the title: “Alright, it’s time to fire the UI design team” or even an ongoing UI Complaint Megathread. What is causing the disconnect between its devoted users and recent dissatisfactory UI updates?
Critique
- Artist Discography
One of the biggest changes recently was to get rid of an artist’s list-view discography. Previously, you would scroll down an artist’s page, where each EP, album and single was listed in chronological order. Now, that same space is taken up with album covers, requiring an extra click to reach the individual songs. This can be especially frustrating because people looking to add a lot of music from one artist will need to spend additional time clicking into each album.
It’s also more difficult to scroll through or look for a specific song without searching for it directly. This feature was so unpopular that Spotify even released a blog post stating that they are working on bringing back the old discography. It seems that Spotify poorly misunderstood how most people are more interested in tracks, songs, and having the leisure to discover them, rather than looking at album cover art.
2. Emphasizing the Wrong Things
Recently, Spotify released a statement: “We have resolved to use the Web Player UI code as the basis for both Web and Desktop in the future”. In an interview with an avid Spotify user, they noted that this change is not an improvement considering how faulty the web player’s UI already is. Like the previous issue, Spotify has decided to focus on enlarging and emphasizing album and playlist covers and titles. With the new update, you can barely fit 12 playlists on the screen, making it more inefficient to scroll through, or read the descriptions which have been minimized.
3. Not Intuitive
Some of Spotify’s more subtle changes can be just as exasperating. For example, many users have complained about the “invisible” search bar:
The bar is no longer static, requiring an extra click to search for a specific song or artist within a playlist. While this might seem trivial, as the function hasn’t fundamentally changed, one Redditor commented:
I have to click ‘Search’ to make the bar appear. It feels very counterintuitive.
Another issue is how Spotify doesn’t track your scroll position anymore. If you are deep into an artist’s discography, then click into something else and try to come back, Spotify places you right at the top of the original page. For those trying to add music all at once, or those who clicked something by accident, this is a nightmare.
So… Why?
For such a successful company, Spotify seems to be making changes that go against what the (seemingly) majority of users want. However, it’s worth noting that Spotify’s demographic is changing rapidly, and many of its most outspoken critics may not belong to its target audience. According to a Statista survey in 2018, 29% of Spotify users were between 25–34 and 26% between 18–24.
With such a large demographic being on the younger side, Spotify will undoubtedly try to target such audiences. This could be the reason behind its focus on having a more aesthetic appeal through larger and more prominent album and playlist covers. On social media, a lot of Gen Z and millennials find pride and enjoyment in curating these playlists and personalizing the covers.
This, however, can cause a disconnect with older generations or more traditional music listeners who simply want complete control over their music. An online critic voiced their concerns that “This radiofication of Spotify is the worst. I don’t want to play a curated playlist made by an AI. I pay the premium to have full control of my music and putting it all in one tab defeats the idea of having an organized and curated library.” Another quote observes why Spotify continues pumping out these updates, at least compared to other services like Apple Music which has not drastically changed its look:
“The home screen layout belies Apple’s target audience: the obsessed music lover. This is someone who wants as much accessibility as possible to their existing music library… Compare that to Spotify’s… This is for someone who is more into using music to set moods or create ambience” (Usability Geek).
Conclusion
Despite the displeased reaction to Spotify’s changes, there’s no doubt that it must still be doing something right in order to have such a strong grasp on the music streaming industry. Some of its features, like its dark interface, smart contrast with buttons and elements, and haptic feedback place Spotify leagues ahead other streaming platforms. Ultimately, it depends on what you want and how much you prioritize personalization, music curation, and discovery. For me, making playlists is one of my favorite hobbies and I care a lot about finding new music. With Spotify’s never-ending recommendations, reliable Discover Weekly playlist, and new tabs like “Made For You”, I find that I’m satisfied enough to overlook the missing search bar or annoying artist page.
We hope that this article will help you find an answer if you are ever asked the age old question, “Spotify or Apple Music?” — at which point, you can start a discussion about their respective UX design!
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