Last.fm is not handling the feedback well, IMHO

There is way too much negative space now, and it mystically simultaneously appears too complex anyway.

That is not a smart design. I wish you could know that this isn't some knee-jerk reaction. It's really not appealing.

Russ said:
We made a hell of a lot of changes during the beta in response to user feedback.

This is really what's so bizarre to me. I was part of the closed (subscribers) beta and we voiced many of the desires that users are venomously demanding now. I didn't see a single one of these change in the least. I'm sure some behind the scenes mechanics changed, but nothing became visibly different apart from some colors, fonts, header design, etc.

I believe that's a large part of why we feel we have been ignored.

I'm not against change. And I appreciate all the new features and what went into them. The live charts and chart/tag/loved tracks settings are a great example of some of the fine work you guys have done. I know I could even grow to accept this new version if it was just a bit more customizeable, i.e. the ability to move the segments around/collapse them on my profile.

I think that's one of the largest concerns here and one that shouldn't be overlooked. The user profile is an integral part of last.fm. It's something a lot of people invest pride and time in so as to share and show the music they love. Right now, I don't even enjoy visiting my profile, and I know a lot of people feel the same way.

People don't like things forced on them. They like options.

I also agree there should have been an obvious date given for the beta going live. This was all just too sudden and ill-communicated.

kevinspencer said:
Wait. You could vote on the beta pages? Was that functionality always there from beta launch or was it added later? I used the beta and posted my thoughts on the beta forums but totally missed the whole voting thing.

It was at the top of every page, the big yellow feedback bar ;)

Russ thanks for your post and I dont want to it to seem like venomous either i read your post and i understand that it would be very dificult to switch back and all the time you guys have spent on the new look would be wasted.

I just seems very sudden and dramatic. I am a big fan of this site along with everyone else and ill continue to use it. How can we give you feedback then? As you said that we are all effectively beta testers now as you still have a bunch of stuff to add.

One thing, you really need to change the cosmetics of the site, when i came on i felt like i was in some kind of bebo clone or something. Theres no need to have massive pictures of artists in the "library" bit, the layout in general feels too...unfinished, lol and i know what you would say to that but i dont mean like stuff you are going to add still but unfinished in the prototype version kind of way, its like this is a first stab attempt at changing the site and no really serious thought has gone into it. Saying that i really dont like the idea of me being a venomous snake biting the designers! Just think before you change :)

"the user image is appearing RIGHT where the text is written"

I'm having a similar issue with shoutboxes. Everytime I start typing a message my avatar JUMPS over and mask a margin of what I'm typing.

Russ,

Thank you for being willing to engage in constructive dialogue.

I think where there is a disconnect is that you are talking about "widgets" but we are asking for usability. I don't claim to be an expert Web designer but I do know the basic truth that a Web site has to be simple and direct. Before, I could click on my Last.fm tab (which was permanently open in a Firefox tab) and within 10 seconds I knew who had sent me a message, who had visited, what my "friends" were listening to, and more. Now, it takes that nearly that long just to refresh the page even with my 6Mb broadband connection. It takes me five clicks to get down to my Shoutbox. No recommendations, no Dashboard. User profiles are below the fold (very stupid). The user page is now dominated by the Library which serves no purpose other than take up space and the radio player which I have never personally found use for (I already have those songs, duh), though I know others use it. For artist pages, they are also very slow now, contain less information, and harder to navigate. Web Design 101 - don't make your visitors work too hard.

Sum total: too slow, too many clicks to get anywhere, most useful information gone. The usability is shot. Fewer widgets and more content please.

The old Last,fm was a brilliant Web design where you could get what you needed quick and easy. There was no need for improvement.

Respectfully,
Douglas

itt we are all whiny change-haters who will magically grow to admire it in no less than three days

thanks loving staff!

xeverglowx said:
I like how efficient the new last.fm is. It's very quick and smooth running...

Are we using the same site?

No offense to you, but for me, the new last.fm is much more slower than the old one.

Russ said:
I've just got to point out how annoyingly small this edit box is! I'm changing that on Monday.

Haha, yeah. I noticed that, too. You could write in notepad or whatever you use and copy & paste it ;). But that's even better :)

Russ said:
Again, we had a significantly smaller userbase in 2006. I can't say for sure, but considering how much our userbase has grown I think this growth in backlash is proportional. Maybe a bit more.

In a weird way it's amazingly flattering to have so many people who care so passionately about your site...

That's something we'll be seeing soon. I don't really know how much of an impact the group will be able to make. There are a lot of people joining it right now, there's no way to predict a number. I'd say just look how much this movement grows, it's a bit too early to compare it.

The people care about this site a lot, because this site deserves it. Even with the new layout, or a far worse one this is (at least for me) the single best music community on the planet. I got to know a lot of people over this site, I have been able to expose my music to even more people, I've had and still have discussions on high (and not so high) levels. It's a great site to socialize and talk about music. I'm not a frequent user of MySpace and not even registered at Facebook, but I do check Last.fm every day.
You staff introduced a lot of awesome things, most of which was met without any criticism. Even the fact that your users feel that they are able to make a change by protesting against a change just shows how little distance there is from the staff to the users. Try complaining at MySpace or Facebook, won't help anything. But this is something you may want to cherish, this connection between users and staff. And if a majority of the active users say that they want the old design back, it would be a very nice thing to respect that wish - or even better implement the option to choose a layout.

As said before, we can't talk about majorities or minorities or how big the movement will grow. I still find it awesome that you guys are here, at 1 AM, discussing with us about a change most website staff wouldn't even announce their users.

Russ said:
I can't speak for the design team, but the architecture of the old design was a bit flaky. Last.fm is a hugely information-heavy site, and we were running out of places to put stuff without running out of space or making things appear too complex. That's where the new layout came from.
That's one of my biggest complaints about the new site: It's too information-laden. There's just too much going on on my page. It's so much information and stuff that I have to scroll down a lot until I reach my shoutbox, one of the most essential parts of the Last.fm experience. I loved loved loved the two column layout of the page and so far this has been the biggest issue, I think. That information would fit in the old layout as well. I'm sure a nice workaround could be found for that.

Even the new empathetic diplomacy face of this pro-new side seems so dismissive.

You can't coddle us into agreeing that the site overhaul is good.

WorldFusionRadio_com said:
Before, I could click on my Last.fm tab (which was permanently open in a Firefox tab) and within 10 seconds I knew who had sent me a message, who had visited, what my "friends" were listening to, and more. Now, it takes that nearly that long just to refresh the page even with my 6Mb broadband connection. It takes me five clicks to get down to my Shoutbox.
We are having some issues with slowness (this is actually my area so I can definitely talk about that), and you'll definitely see that improve significantly over the next week. Unfortunately when you don't release a codebase for so long it does tend to get a bit slow.

No recommendations, no Dashboard.
There is now the home page which replaces the dashboard - what are you missing from there?

User profiles are below the fold (very stupid). The user page is now dominated by the Library which serves no purpose other than take up space and the radio player which I have never personally found use for (I already have those songs, duh), though I know others use it.
The viewing your userpage vs viewing someone else's is a problem we've never really solved. Rest assured we're still looking into it.


Sum total: too slow, too many clicks to get anywhere, most useful information gone. The usability is shot. Fewer widgets and more content please.

The slowness we're working on. We've had to change where information is in order to make room for more awesome stuff that we can put in.

(I've just noticed that you're complaining that there's less information while the guy below you is complaining that there's too much! ;)

Very dissatisfied with the change. Give the people the option to revert back to classic view. Gamefaqs has been doing this for years every time the skin changes.

Last.fm Team, I do not know if anyone of you has found the positive posts about the new design and the constructive feedback amongst all these complaints.

I just want to say again, being a user since early 2006, that I respect very much what you have done here, it must have been a lot of work and refactoring and rewriting. Being a developer myself, I totally see and respect that.

I myself am not happy with the new web interface yet, but it has some serious potential I think. It can become one of the coolest web applications out there for sure.

So, if it is already fixed, as Ross said, that the old design is not going to "come back", I want to suggest that everyone who is just complaining should go back to using or not using the site and possibly give constructive inoffensive feedback, instead of creating all this useless data...