Last.fm redesign controversy
Last.fm launched a major redesign just over 10 days ago. It’s not gone over very well: after over 2000 (mostly negative) comments on the blog announcement, discussion moved to the feedback forum, with threads on the new interface, most missed features and how Last.fm is handling the feedback (or not), all with 100s of posts. The “Bring back the old Last.fm” group hit over 5000 members in just 2 days, and is now over 12,000 strong.
As a long-term Last.fm user myself (along with the office), my initial reaction to the redesign was “oh no”, and unfortunately that’s not changed much as I got used to it. There’s only one feature I really wished for — charts that update continuously, rather than weekly — and plenty of changes that do no good at all. The site’s speed is still as bad as ever.
Many people pointed out the new design’s resemblance to Facebook. It has adopted a very similar colour scheme and layout, as well as sporting a very similar “recent activity” newsfeed. (Linkedin also recently adopted a more Facebook-like layout, but I’d argue much more well-considered, and provoked much less backlash.) Many people are also contending that the redesign was greatly driven by the needs of advertising, which this TimesOnline article helps to suggest.
Moving from the old multi-tabbed navigation (I can’t believe I’m defending it) to the Facebook-style left-hand navigation resulted in one less column, which helps create an awkward disjunction between elements that used to belong together: for example user summary, user tags and user activity. The “Shoutbox” has also been moved out of its column into a full blog-style comment area. This may make sense for some users, but not for me or any of my 20+ friends on Last.fm who never made much use of the Shoutbox. I also miss some of the more whimsical features, like the artist “quilts” or the clever generated typography on artist or event pages.
Criticism has been somewhat incoherent — this thread is probably the best attempt to stay on topic — but this reflects the wide range of issues people have with the site. Some people have gone as far as offering user stylesheets to undo the damage.
What will be interesting to watch now is how Last.fm responds. Redesigns — especially on sites with large user communities — often alienate large numbers of users, and it’s crucial for companies to be part of the conversation. They need to clearly explain the reasons for design decisions, and be prepared to listen and make changes in response to feedback: the site belongs to the users, after all. So far the signs have not been good. There has been no blog post in the 10 days since the redesign announcement, and official responses have tended towards the “you’ll get used to it” variety.
I’m reminded of the furore that erupted over the macromedia.com redesign back in 2003, and how deftly Macromedia managed it and evolved the site drastically over the ensuing months in response to user feedback. (The site design subsequently became something of a template for corporate sites, although it fell victim to the inferior Adobe template after the merger.) On the other hand, the Allmusic.com redesign in 2004 set the benchmark for sticking two fingers up at your user base, arguably hastening Wikipedia’s ascendance as real alternative.