Case study: Follow up to Spotify UI updates

The second part of a case study exploring potential improvements to the Spotify mobile UI

Source: Spotify press release

In the first article, I explored three flaws I perceived in the Spotify mobile UI:

• Inconsistent and insufficient sorting and organization in the Browse/Search page
• A lack of a clear option in the song queue
• A confusing, inconsistent, and unhelpful format for saved artists, albums and songs

I also presented three potential solutions to the three problems I identified.

In the time since the initial writing of that article, Spotify has rolled out a number of significant updates to their mobile app, including changes to the areas of concern. Did they address these issues? Let’s take a look!

Problem 1: Lack of Sorting in Browse/Search

In my previous piece, I described this problem with Spotify’s main browse/search function:

“Among the browsing experience, there is no clear hierarchy or sorting present. At the top of the tab, the user can access their top two genres. Directly below that, the app displays the most popular podcast categories. Already there is an inconsistency between “your top genres” and “popular podcast categories”.

The next header, “Browse All” contains everything else with no clear sorting methodology. Some of the categories are actual musical genres. Some of the categories are moods or environments (At Home, Workout or Chill). The user also comes down here to access the somewhat redundant Discover and Made For You categories, once prominent features of the app, now relegated to buried tiles. Also, the New Music category, which one might expect to be near the top, cannot be seen until the user scrolls below the break.”

My proposed solution was to break up the tiles into sub-categories to break up the mass of colored blocks into something more quickly scannable.

Figure 1.1 — My proposed solution to Spotify’s cluttered and unsorted Search page, with tiles sorted into categories

Now take a look at the Search page after the latest Spotify update:

Fig 1.2 — The Search page in Spotify’s latest update

What’s changed? In short, not much. Unfortunately, New Releases still resides below the screen break, nestled amongst other tiles. Made for you and Discover are still discrete pages, despite being nearly redundant. And the wall of tiles continues endlessly with no trace of sorting or hierarchy.

Problem 2: Non-discoverable queue clear

The second problem existed within the queue function. To sum up my diagnosis from the previous piece: I praised Spotify for the inclusion of a quick and easy-to-access queue function within the mobile app, though the execution had some flaws that kept it from being truly usable. Namely, there was no way to clear the queue. Pair that with some zealous album additions, or a Repeat Album being turned on, and the function could become broken quickly.

My solution was a grouping of tracks in the queue by their appropriate origin, as well as the simple addition of the Clear button next to each grouping of tracks in the queue, and finally, a Clear All button at the bottom.

Fig 2.1 — Spotify’s queue as it existed at the time of writing

Fig 2.2 — My suggested improvements in a mocked up queue page

Did Spotify address this issue in their mobile app over the last year? Let’s find examine!

In short: Yes, mostly! They didn’t incorporate it exactly the way I recommended, but they got pretty close! (I’ll take my royalty check now Spotify). Most importantly, they added a prominent Clear Queue button, as well as breaking down the tracks in the queue by where they added from.

Missing from their implementation is the option to clear all tracks from a given artist, playlist, or album. Additionally, it’s not clear to me the logic that is used to order the tracks as they are added to the queue, or which tracks are given priority.

If you look at the first of the two screenshots above, you may also note that there is an error when Spotify reads the album from which songs are queued. Spotify lists a selection of tracks from the artist Kali Uchis under the banner of “Next From: Higher Power”. However, that is not the correct name of the album; you can see in the next screenshot a single from the artist Coldplay with that same name. Spotify seems to pull album metadata from previously played tracks and applies it to upcoming tracks erroneously.

To sum up this section, I believe Spotify designed a simple and workable improvement to their queue function. Vitally, it is much easier to clear the queue when it becomes inundated with unwanted tracks. While there remain some bugs in the technology, from a UI perspective, the approach is a sound one.

Problem 3: Inconsistent/Unhelpful Saved Artist & Album Pages

The third and final issue in my case study concerned the organization of a user’s saved (or “liked”) artists, albums and songs. Ostensibly, this part of the app should function like a library of all the music a user has saved from Spotify’s streaming catalogue. Since the advent of unlimited music streaming, it has become a bit more difficult to keep a robust collection of personal favorites.

Spotify’s execution of this feature at the time of writing was a far cry from the standard library-style music sorting of applications past (consider iTunes or Windows Media Player). Instead of nested layers of Genre, Artist, Album, Track, Spotify applied them as separate, somewhat unrelated filters to sort by.

Therefore, all the albums were listed irrespective of their recording artist; songs were just a mass of just that, songs; an Artist page would take you either to (if you had any songs or albums saved) a jumble of all your saved songs by the artist with no sorting, or (if you had only Liked the artist, and none of their music) simply the Artist’s main page.

I proposed a solution to solve a couple aspects of the problem. My recommendation was to modify the standard Spotify artist page with a collection of the user’s saved songs near the top of the page, categorized by album. This section could be collapsed so that the user could peruse to browse the artist’s page as usual.

Figure 3.1 — My proposed modification to the Spotify artist page to include all of the user’s saved music by the artist

As you might come to expect, Spotify has indeed introduced some significant updates to this area of the mobile app experience. I will start out of the gate by saying I think the changes they made are a big improvement to the previous UI.

First and foremost, Spotify condensed the Library to a single page made up of an alphabetical, yet still haphazard list of artists, albums, playlists and podcasts. However, they also have introduced a number of filters along the top of the list, such as Playlists, Artists, and Albums, as well as Podcasts, and the option to see only Downloaded content. Additionally, they have given the user the option to sort the list by date added or played, purely alphabetical or alphabetical by creator.

Figure 3.1 — The Spotify artist page, no sorting of liked songs

Next, Spotify did away with the older artist page format that only included a user’s saved music and nothing else, switching to a consistent page for all artists. They also included a Liked Songs section near the top of the page, similar to my recommendation, but unlike my recommendation there is a total absence of filtering or sorting available, though that may no longer matter.

However, the addition of numerous filters and sorting options within the library does greatly improve upon the previous iteration. Namely, the user now has the option to filter for albums, and sort by creator. This is the closest Spotify has gotten to allowing the user to keep a collection of their favorite albums and easily sift through them in a meaningful way.

Figure 3.2 — Filtering by album, sorting by creator

As a bonus, the method of sorting of vinyl albums in my own personal collection is closest to Recently Played. This allows me to visually remind me which albums I have been overplaying and which I have been neglecting. While this feature is now technically possible, Spotify does not yet allow the user to swap the order (from most to least recently for instance), so one must scroll all the way to the bottom of the list to achieve the same effect. Nonetheless it’s a fun feature to explore!

Figure 3.3 — Recently played is a useful sorting option to have

Another thing to note, if the user enters the Liked Songs section, Spotify now allows the user to filter by genre! And if the user clicks the Add Songs button, the app gives four pages of suggestions for the user to add to their collection based on various criteria. For example, a recent exploration of this feature presented me with Most Played, Dreamo for you, Freak Folk for you, and Recently Played. Aside from an unexpected insight into your author’s listening habits, I think this is a robust and interesting feature that users would be wise to take advantage of. If one finds oneself racking their brain for a song they recently played that they wanted to save for later listening, now they can do so directly from this menu.

Figure 3.4 — Filtering for liked songs, and genre

Figure 3.5 — The user can easily refer to their recently played tracks to save for later listening

Conclusion

It’s good to see the product designers at Spotify continuing to iterate on their design; as music streaming becomes a vital part of everyday life, Spotify can’t rest on their laurels and the novelty of their service. And they’ve shown that they can improve the mobile user experience and offer new ways to listen to old favorites as well as discover new musical depths. While they did not address every concern I raised in my first case study, with the recent UI updates, it’s clear they are attempting an intentional and holistic approach to the experience, which goes a long way.