New Interface

I wanted to wait on posting my thoughts, in case some things were changed for the better, and there have been a few, like the ability to access one's inbox in the upper-right near your name... unless, apparently, you happen to be in the forums. I posted a journal entry, but I thought I'd bring it to the forums for the Last.fm staff to see.

So, what do I think? Well, overall, yes, I do like the last Last.fm better than this version. There are some things with the newer version I do like, and there are many other things that can be made better with just a handful of simple changes. There is certainly some design issues, which I will get to in my critique, and I do miss some things that were easier to access on the old site, or are totally gone (!) from the new.

I gave myself a week to use Last.fm and find things that I loved, hated and puzzled over. You will find a rather lengthy and thorough analysis below, although by no means is it complete. Plus, I would like to point out that there are some features I may like or dislike that I can see other people feeling differently about. Plus, I only used the features and pages that I used before, assuming I could access them. So, let me state that this is my own sole opinion, and I am representing only myself, no other groups that I may be affiliated with nor any side of the "love it/hate it" camps.

With that caveat, here is my critique...

Home page:

Recently Added to Your Library is a nice addition. The pictures for these artists could be smaller, though, but that's not really a big deal to me.

With the old set-up, Music Reccomended by Last.fm was much lower on the Dashboard. Now, it's in a rather prominent spot underneath the Recently Added section. It takes the place and prominence of what my friends were/are listening to, and I'm not very fond of the new placement for Your Friends Listening. I would prefer a swap, or at least moving Your Friends Listening above Music Recommended by Last.fm. To balance out space, the Personalised Podcasts, Recommended Videos and Recommended Events could go in the right column instead.

It was something very small on the old site, but I liked the little boxes showing my Most Recent Visitor and my Most Recent Shout.

We didn't have this option previously, but I think it would be nice to be able to access one's journal on the Home page. Could it be one of the tabs on the left side, perhaps? In this way, if we want to write a new journal entry, we don't have to go into our profiles to do it.

Personal profile:

Recently listened tracks is fine. I like the little gear widget allowing one to add a song to a playlist or love it or share and such. It's very handy on its own. I have further thoughts regarding adding songs to a playlist, which shall be addressed later.

The Library and my top artists seem a little redundant if you have the top artists set to "Overall." Although we can set the Top Artists mode to a smaller length of time (I love how we can now choose "Last 7 days"), it would be nice if we could do the same for the Library display as well, like what can be seen on our Home page.

I'd really like my Neighbours displayed on my profile page, please. The area needn't occupy a large space. They could be under my groups on the side, but at least somewhere, just the top five or ten. I'll listen to my neighbour's radio in order to find out about new music, and now in order to do this I have to go through more clicking.

I preferred the journal entries in the center column as opposed to the side, preferably under the Recently Listened Tracks area or perhaps even under the Library. It's just so easy to overlook on the side.

Do we really need a big, bulky player on the corner of each person's profile? I liked the way it was before, as an easy-to-read hyperlink to click on with a short list of artists and bands. Further, is there an option to listen to someone's loved tracks or other playlists without popping up another window that's got all sorts of information and so forth? I mean, I like having the option for a very comprehensive page that changes with each track, but on the whole, I like just a little radio to have outside of my main browser, so I can listen to someone's radio and putter around at the same time without the need of multiple tabs or windows. It's great to be able to then click on the song title to bring one to a page similar to what you have, but only if and when one wants to find out more.

The addition of the green "Now listening" text under a person's profile in the Friends section is a nice touch.

Um... where are my tags?! I utilised tags to a heavy degree, and now... where are they?

Profile Journal page:

Seriously, does a person's picture need to be so tiny?

Group pages:

Connected artists should go on side or underneath Shoutbox, or alternatively put Shoutbox the side.

Connections should have selection boxes so we can elect to delete a number of connections if necessary. I run a Last.fm group that connects with events that are playing, and I delete those that have already played, so I have to remove each and every event connection one by one. This is a very time-consuming task that I perform for the group, and it would be wonderful if it could be made much simpler to delete a number of connections at once.

I strongly dislike the light blue font colour. It just doesn't go with the black and red! Bring back grey! And does the font need to be so big?

When clicking on the "add an event url" text box, the "add..." text should disappear upon clicking. Instead, I have to highlight the text that's already there in order to enter my url correctly. Could you possibly work on making it so a user doesn't need to delete text in an entry field in order to enter their information within the box?

Events page:

The Sponsored Events section... who exactly "sponsors" it? Last.fm? In any case, I have no use seeing events in Laval, France or Lindesberg, Sweden, or anywhere else that isn't local. If I were happening to be holidaying in Laval, I could always go search for it, but I feel seeing these sponsored events smacks of advertising. It would be more relevant, if you insist on showing events that are playing a million miles from me, to at least tailor it to the artists I listen to. So, in the unlikely scenario that I have gobs of cash to jet to New York City to see Blonde Redhead, at least it's somewhat relevant to me. The Sponsored Events currently shown are about as relevant as a steak dinner to a vegan.

I like the addition of the Photos from shows that have played in my area, although I don't think so many necessarily need to be displayed. Just five will do.

On an event's page, I notice now that "Connected Groups" is no longer featured on the page. In fact, I can find it nowhere. This is dismaying, as I run a group that puts a lot of focus on events, and many people who would look at local events would often click onto the group icon when it appeared on the Event page. Now, I no longer can readily tell if I've included an Event URL in my connections, nor can people see the group icon and potentially join, or at least peek at, the group I run. This is really disappointing, as there is so much room on the right-hand side for Connected Groups. I can see how other groups would be upset at this oversight as well, as it greatly diminishes their exposure to Last.fm users, especially considering there is no "Groups" tab on the top header bar.

Artist Page:

I like the addition of the little red "On Tour" text icon next to the band's name. This is a wonderful feature, and I'm glad I can actually click on it to see where the band is playing.

The Similar Artists on the Artist or Band page should be moved lower in priority from the second section in the middle column to either the side column or below the Top Albums. It's like the page is trying to push another artist onto you before you've really gotten the feel for the artist you're currently looking at.

I like the addition of the Recent Activity section, so I can see what other people are tagging or whatnot. The placement on the side column is just fine.

When clicking on a track to add to one's playlist, I don't like how a number of pop-ups come up to ask me "are you sure you want to add it to your playlist" and "okay, it's added!" It seems superfluous to have so many pop-ups. I like the older system of automatically adding it without all the pop-up windows. If I made a mistake, I could always go into my playlist and delete the song.

Overall:

I'm definitely not a fan of the blank space on the left side underneath the side menu. I feel the right column could be minimised horizontally and one could add so much other information on the side. If you're planning on creating some dynamic use in the narrow space, then okay, but if you're planning on keeping the narrow blankness, I beg of you to reconsider.

Shoutboxes don't need all the room they're taking up currently. I preferred them on the side, easily accessible without the excessive amount of scrolling to get to them.

On the header's edges... is that supposed to be a crayon effect? Or lipstick? I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.11, Safari browser at home, and it looks like that to me. The "Paint it Black" version looks a bit like charcoal scrapings. I'm not a fan, but I guess it's something that, on my list, ranks pretty low in priority.

The one time I tried to log on Last.fm from the basic Dell or HP computers at my work with Internet Explorer... was a total failure. It couldn't handle all the images on my home page. I no longer visit Last.fm at my job anymore due to the intensity of the graphics. Even on my Mac at home, I've noticed a definite slowdown in loading the sites, especially personal profiles.

Although the artist photos are big and plentiful, I feel like the photos of the Last.fm users have gotten teeny-tiny. For instance, when looking at individual event pages, the attendees' photos are so small, it almost seems ridiculous to even bother at all with them. I preferred the larger format in the past for the photos, even if you could only fit six attendees on the Event page. The same complaint goes for my friends and my recent visitors. I would rather have their pictures larger, and my Library Artist photos smaller, or reduced. I may be in the minority of the latter, but seriously, it seems like the diminished size of the photos of your users is almost an allegory of their importance to Last.fm, which I hope is not the case.

The drop-down menu given on the upper right shouldn't be a dark red on the "Simply Red" option. It's difficult to see when there isn't much contrast from the header's colour. And the dark red is rather ugly. It looks better in the "Paint it Black" option, but still, not quite good.

I don't like the choice of blue for links and bars. It looks way too "Generic FaceSpace." Giving us a choice to switch it to a nice grey or orange or some other colour or something along those lines would seriously make the Last.fm user experience a lot less generic, and would quell a lot of criticism accusing Last.fm becoming a FaceSpace clone. It seems the blue ought to be its own little colour scheme selection: Moody Blue or something. It doesn't go with the red or black at all.

Admittingly, I can get used to some elements of new layout provided that several positive changes are made to utilise the empty space, or at least move and rearrange some things to make it more user-friendly.

However, I can completely see myself abandoning the "Connected Events" option for Residents of Florida because it's such a hassle to delete and add events, and now the group, and other groups, cannot be seen on the Event page. The lack of showing connected groups to an event is truly disheartening, and lacking a Groups tag or even an easy-to-see option to search groups, it gives me the impression that Last.fm is trying to discourage groups altogether.

Although this is more my own personal preference, I would like larger pictures, like what's featured on a user's Friends page, for event attendees and for the side when showing recent visitors and user friends. I don't mind showing only the last four visitors to my profile, so long as I can actually see their faces without needing to click on their profiles. And please bring back the neighbours on a person's profile page. The users on Last.fm are just as interesting as the artists, perhaps more so, and I think they deserve an icon bigger than the end of a pencil on a website.

All in all, I still strongly prefer the old look, mainly due to its simplicity of use and its aesthetics. As I said, I could get used to some of the changes, and I've mentioned a few of the alterations I actually do like. Still, the user-friendliness of the website has been dramatically diminished since the new Last.fm was unveiled, and I may find myself more inclined to start up a blog to replace the Last.fm group, or use other websites like Pandora to find out about new artists if the site remains as it is at the moment, which I doubt it will. I'm not trying to threaten to "take my business elsewhere," but it may wind up coming to that if I find doing what I previously did on Last.fm much more difficult than before. Thankfully, I have already seen little bits of action on Last.fm's part to make things better within the past week, namely the "Paint it Black" option and allowing the Inbox to be accessible from any page. I just hope they continue to make proper changes based on user feedback.

Please allow 100x100 icons without them being stretched...I have 700+ of them.


(I posted this in the last.fm beta forum because I didn't realise I was there)

FINALLY There is a paint it black option.

Look at that. I broke my own rule. You're Planteh. Please disregard the last line of my previous post!

last.fm sucks now....

I don't understand why people have such an obsession with Facebook, but I do agree about the black, sooo.....

How long 'till we get 'Back in Black'?

Later, Seeker

And from what I saw then, the site will be in the process of improving in the upcoming weeks (why not beta test it longer? dunno) and some of the most numerous requests should be fullilled.No matter how much beta testing you do they'll always be bugs when you release it for everyone (although this is a little excessive).

For the record I prefer the new interface.

(sorry, please delete my post)

I said it before, but I really think the new design is a major step back in usability. and it's ugly, generic and whatnot. I want an old last.fm option!

I have no problem loading the new Last.fm, but I also have 2 gigs of RAM.

I also have no problem with the new layout. It took a bit to get used to, but I generally prefer it. The smartest thing for the developers to do would be to make the old version available as an option, for the masses that want it back. Granted, that would probably also be a major tax on their servers...

yeah, i'm talking about the one in the Events menu. It's the smallest thing on the world and it would make a whole lotta difference.

I hadn't logged in for a week or so...figured things would be running smoother after some time to work out bugs...so far, works great. As I use this site mainly to stream music while at workstation/home computer, new interface is fine by me. I always found all the statistics interesting, but not why I am on lastfm. Good work!