Spotify isn’t Spotless: UX Frustrations

I’ve been a Spotify premium user for a year or so. Even though I constantly receive app and desktop client (OSX) updates, I don’t think that my user experience on their service is getting better at all. And man, it is frustrating!

Before I started using Spotify, I manage my music library manually. I’ll come clean that 96-98% of these MP3s are downloaded over torrents. My two main reasons are: not having enough money to buy every album and the hassle to convert it to a digital format (DRM free Albums aren’t that easy to find that time). I don’t like the hassle of managing my music by track, one by one (with a few exceptions of course). The reason why I download music by album.

In a gist, I used to download music because it was convenient.

I’ve read several articles that made me somewhat aware how hard for artists and bands make money, especially out of their albums alone. So when Spotify launched here in the Philippines, offering their service for just ₱129.00 ($3 USD). That’s definitely a good deal for me so I decided to give it a go, mixed with guilt and enthusiasm to at least support my favorite artists and bands, and the industry itself.

The first few months was awesome. It is! It was definitely easier to manage almost everything. The synced, seamless experience of being able to listen to my favorite albums and tunes in any of my devices, even offline! With this experience, I have managed to convert a few friends to use Spotify just by sharing it.

Everything seems great, until the inevitable stuff and updates happened.

UX Frustration 1:
I experienced my first Spotify frustration (Spotifrustration?) when I was about to do one of my morning runs. I tried listening to a playlist created by Spotify for runners. I liked it, so I followed and toggled “Available Offline” so I can listen to it everytime I’ll go for a run.

I eventually loved the tracks without even knowing the titles since I already have it on my phone. Until Spotify updated the list, without any notification or confirmation If I want to download or replace the previous tracks. And just like that, my beloved running playlist was gone. Thanks Spotify!

Note to other users: If you want a playlist to be an actual part of your library (without anyone having to change it but you). You need to create your own playlist for that, then transfer the whole playlist.

To Spotify: Why can’t we duplicate playlists instantly?

UX Frustration 2:
My second Spotifrustration is when I started losing downloaded tracks when I received an app and desktop update, which by the way is still happening from time to time. Downloading tracks again and again is pretty much frustrating, especially here in the Philippines, where Internet connection is ironically slow but expensive.

UX Frustration 3:
Spotify has this awesome feature called Spotify Connect. It is! You can remotely switch to which device will play your music, on a local network. So what’s frustrating about it? Why can’t I stream my downloaded tracks from one device to another? Why can’t it detect which songs are already available in all of my devices so It can be streamed within a local network? Can you (Spotify) not do this to save bandwidth and storage space at the same time?

UX (and UI) Frustration 4:
As I’ve been using Spotify for more than a year now, It’s inevitable that my music library will expand. The frustrating part is that the UI and UX of the desktop and mobile app is very different.

Desktop clients don’t have any control to their playlists. Everything is just there on a long, single list. Either it was created by Spotify, a group, a stranger or you. It’s sitting there. All you can do is create new ones or delete. You can’t even filter it to arrange the list alphabetically. More so if you want to show / hide stuff like showing only the playlists you created.

Another frustrating part of their desktop client is the way you need to create a playlist before you can use the “Available Offline” feature. It was changed/updated because as far as I remember, I can pretty much use this feature with ease for every artist/bands or album that I like and love, and now? You just simply can’t.

Here are the screens to prove it:

You can go as vague, as downloading the whole discography on their mobile app. But for the desktop client? Nope.

Same with albums.

You still can download music for offline consumption, but hey, do the extra work and create a playlist first!

So far, that’s most of the things that I want Spotify to solve. Users like me subscribed for the convenience of managing our music libraries, please make it so. Thanks!

XOXO, Jan Harold