Last.fm July 2012 Beta

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Leaders: Couldtryharder and jukevox
Join Policy: Open
Created on: 12 Jul 2012
Description:

Greetings testers!

Design Changes to Last.fm

We've been quietly working for a couple of months updating some Last.fm's most visited pages to make them easier to use and to encourage people to discover more new music. Here's a quick summary of what's changed:

Artist, Album and Track pages

We've redesigned Artist, Album and Track pages from scratch. We’ve tidied up the page, and grouped things together into sections, so that you can quickly find what you’re looking for. Actions like playing radio, buying music and sharing pages with friends are now accessible at the top right of every page. The text is easier to read, and the pictures are bigger. You can also find better listening data for albums and artists.

Please let us know what you think, using the blue feedback bar at the top of every page. A quick yes or no is helpful, but if you have time to send us more detailed reports and comments, we would appreciate it.

Navigation menus

On almost every page on the site, the navigation menu is now lined up at the top right of the page, next to the page title, instead of sticking out on the left hand side. This gives you tidier, wider pages, with more space for the page content.

You’ll also find that less commonly-used items are now in a drop-down menu, under "more...". This gives you quick access to the things you use most often, and keeps the page tidy where there is a long list of related pages to choose from.

In the coming weeks we’ll be continuing to work on these pages, making more changes, and adjusting the new designs in response to your feedback.

Thanks for stopping by,

The Last.fm team

=========================================================================================

Update, 2 August 2012

As you've probably noticed, the beta is now closed and we've released the new pages on the live site.

Over 18,000 people gave us feedback and a significant majority of the feedback was positive. There's more detail about the beta, including responses to some frequent feedback, in a new thread here.

Thank you for all your feedback, and thanks as always for caring about Last.fm

Active Discussions

Disfigurator commented on
“Redesign of Artist page” (12) August 2012

soadize commented on
“Track pages.” (1) July 2012

soadize commented on
“Album pages.” (3) July 2012

soadize commented on
“Artist Pages.” (16) July 2012

xixixi721 commented on
“LAST.FM how to do Spotify Playlist integration -right-” (1) July 2012

Weekly Top Artists

Overall Unique to this Group

1	Daft Punk	100
2	Radiohead	39
3	David Bowie	37
4	The National	31
5	Vampire Weekend	31
6	Depeche Mode	30
7	Lana Del Rey	30
8	The Beatles	30
9	Phoenix	29
10	Muse	28

Shoutbox

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zemrela_s_letem

"Over 18,000 people gave us feedback and a significant majority of the feedback was positive." - ..Uh huh.. And you do realize that significant majority of people that give positive feedback on such things as new layout would be ok with pretty much everything? And that when trying to make something better, you always have to pay attention to the negative responses? It's the paying attention to detail that makes things unique. If you're fine with majority being ok (aka being avarage) and you don't aim for unique and great, than you're not the last.fm I thought you were. I'm very disappointed.

25 Aug 2012 Reply
Disfigurator

brand929, probably that's because we all like getting butthurt now and then.

9 Aug 2012 Reply
thaneel25

I LOVE LAMP !

7 Aug 2012 Reply
wolfgan1

WE DONT LIKE THE NEW LAYOUT!!

7 Aug 2012 Reply
k0ff13p07

Design horror. Can't believe my eyes. As mentioned a zillion times before: The design ugly, mainly because it is too big in all aspects. Last.fm is gonna blow themselves up. If they persist on this track the balloon will burst anytime soon.

6 Aug 2012 Reply
pabulous

i digress, the site does look good on a tablet, but how often am i going to be scrobbling and viewing the site on there? probably never.

6 Aug 2012 Reply
countinfive

i like the design a lot but srsly the one negative thing that was voiced strongly above everything else was the pictures being oversized. i'm pretty pissed that they ignored the feedback.

5 Aug 2012 Reply
bleachgeek4973

v Ok it's drama because people feel ignored and are voicing the fact they don't like being ignored or the design? Cool.

4 Aug 2012 Reply
thaneel25

bring on the drama

4 Aug 2012 Reply
brand929

I couldn't help but to laugh when I loaded an artist page just now. Talk about utter disregard and disrespect. Like other people have said below, what was the point of making this group and asking for feedback just to ignore all the user's opinions? I've already stated my issues with the new design in the beginning of this shoutbox so I won't write them again. All I'll say is that I'm extremely disappointed as a longtime user of this site. In fact, for the past few years I've been disappointed in many changes to last.fm, and now I'm seriously questioning why I subscribe here.

3 Aug 2012 Reply
easterntrees

I too am saddened at the total lack of attention paid to the comments coming from this group, particularly given that there was a clear consensus in here on many key issues. but paying attention to corporate focus groups and anonymous user votes instead of your vocal and dedicated core fanbase always makes for a better product, right? just ask microsoft!

2 Aug 2012 Reply
thaneel25

@Pooble: thank you, good sir :)

2 Aug 2012 Reply
thaneel25

what is wrong with you people? you're acting all weird! don't you have a life to attend to? why are you complaining the shit out of this chat box? seriously! the new design might not be perfect but it is good and it will do! get used to it or create a blog to tell your friends about how much you dislike it!

2 Aug 2012 Reply
bleachgeek4973

v Well yeah if it didn't need feedback they shouldn't of asked for it but they did. I also don't think the backlash would be as harsh if they didn't rush it. I like the design enough but honestly they should of waited a little more. The advertising was also meek but that's another topic in itself. None the less it is what it is.

2 Aug 2012 Reply
Salurion

@ambientsorrow: It should look like this without adblock: http://i.imgur.com/7x9GJ.jpg. I guess it looks bad in artists with no bio, but you can add one. No wasted space here: http://i.imgur.com/t6aGf.jpg @bleachgeek4973: Maybe, but as I said, these are minor cosmetic changes, I don't think it even needed a beta or feedback at all. And they will get this kind of reactions no matter what they do, so they have to take all the criticism with a grain of salt.

2 Aug 2012 Reply
bleachgeek4973

@Salurion: The main problem with me is they rushed this. They didn't allow testing for long, they ignored most of the in depth design feedback from this group and just put it out there after only 2 versions that were both ultra similar. It's not like those disliking are a small group either. Look at the post in the forum and you can see people making in depth discussion why it's not good. Plus the stats and how they based doing it on that is questionable for some. 50% feedback approval? 64% artist page approval? How is that a good enough stat? Just shows in some retrospects based on a like/dislike policy is not very good.

2 Aug 2012 Reply
ambientsorrow

http://i49.tinypic.com/ohlixe.png There is an example of white spaces i am referring to. It happens on all artist pages for me. There are some variances on the amount of space, but in any case, it just adds up to too much scrolling.

2 Aug 2012 Reply
Salurion

If they had to make everyone happy, they would never be able to get anything done. User feedback is useful, but in the end you have to do what you think is more convenient. There will always be unhappy users who don't like change and think they could do a better job. I don't see all that white space everyone is talking about, and I like the bigger images and text. Now you can see the album art in all it's glory, and I love that. Everything is cleaner and nicer to read. These are minor cosmetic changes anyway, I hope the whole site gets a complete redesign soon.

2 Aug 2012 Reply
ambientsorrow

Diabolical changes. I voted for "no". Unfortunately i wasn't part of this group to share my thoughts on it, but judging by a few of the comments it wouldn't have made a difference at all. They made the change anyway. Yeah, i'm really furious that my favourite website has become no different to the shite we have to go through with Facebook and such where changes for the worse are forced upon everyone. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Some advice the designers or the people that gave to ok to change the design, should take heed of.

2 Aug 2012 Reply
roldki

"Over 18,000 people gave us feedback and a significant majority of the feedback was positive." Really? Because so far all the feedback I've seen has been negative.

2 Aug 2012 Reply