Visual design of beta last.fm

The current (non-beta) design is in my opinion perfect. It's one of those things to remember forever, like the Viva Zwei design. They didn't change it much over the years, and that's why people loved it. It was straight, minimal and always fitted within the music. Same goes for the current Last.fm design. Don't ruin it! When I opened the beta page, I was feeling like someone thrown me out of my warm and cozy house, took my clothes and told me to dress up like all the other ones and wander in supermakrets for ages. It's that bad...

1. Too much blue! I thought it was the royal color reserved for the subcribers? Not something to be used everytime, just because You can... It's Facebook-ich, it's boring, it's like everything we have already seen. "So will be the music on this site..." - many will newcommers will say, sadly.

2. Shoutbox in the main section look so web 2.0. Face it, these shoutboxes are here just as a decoration. Not a something as important, to stick right under our musical taste. Reminds me of MySpace. Soon the pages will be one long chat list.

3. The most important thing a user wants to see when entering my profile is my picture? I don't think so... And the "about me" section between musical stats. Not every listener of Last.fm is such a social animal. Some like to be in the shadow, let the music (stats) speak for itself. I can imagine this is just a sample layout of the redesigned Facebook with some Last.fm apps hooked onto it.

4. Green color in some elements, cheesy "notes", hearts by the song, wich remind of Facebook again, the subtle play icon replaced by by this web 2.0 gradientish one, bolded logotypes, wich lack this elegant look, loss of footer, one from many web 2.0 sites could learn from, and many many more things I consider as mistakes in design.

5. I demand one thing - state clearly is this the new design concept, or just a quick mashup for testing only. I look again at the main toolbar, and think "Facebook".

P.S. I feel like Last.fm is going somewhere I don't want to be... :-/

I don't like the new site design :(

When I visit a last.fm profile I want to see complete info about the music that the owner listen to. I don't want not scroll over a huge "about me" filler, 6 artists pictures and an irrelevant top tracks chart to get to a not very informative artist top 10, this is sad, very sad :(. It's clear that you are aiming to get a more musically ignorant crowd to last.fm, the crowd that has only 4 favorite artists, listen to singles all the time and writes tons of idiotic stuff in their "about me"s. understandable under the business perspective but sad for me as a advanced music listener and last.fm user.

btw some links are now broken, this problem also exists in the live version, for example the link to the extra stats program in build.fm (http://build.last.fm/item/34) is wrong

this is a working link:

http://www.last.fm/user/C26000/journal/2006/07/30/383m_last.fm_extra_stats

@Champ213: fair points. I think configurability will be the key. Let us display Top 20 or Top 50 on our profile page if we want; let us reorder/remove the page elements if we don't want the About Me section, or if we'd rather not have it at all.

But then again, if Last give the users more options, won't more people complain that it's becoming more like Facebook?

In total agreement with many of the people in this thread. New features are amazing! The library is a natural evolution, and for the most part the new functional layout definitely improves upon what we already have.

But the visual elements! Arg! My first reaction was 'Oh Noes! CBS is corporatizing Last.fm! The only real improvement in the new visuals are the emphasis put on pictures. Profile pictures, artist and album pictures, etc.

I really feel like the loss of our red/pink color scheme is almost a slap in the face. I understand the desire to simplify in order to appeal to a larger community, but this is way too far in that direction.

To be more specific, my profile page in the beta is visually more functional, but less satisfying to look at. I can't see myself keeping it open in a tab all day and smiling every time I pass by it. Also, the attempt at a cleaner look backfires a bit and makes it look more cluttered. The headers for each section, rather then being large and pinkish, are now black and bold. I can't skim my profile as easily making it look like a soulless homogeneous whole.

This is even worse in the shoutbox. Because of the wider format lower on the page, it just looks like a giant mass of text.

A new design scheme isn't necessarily bad, but focus needs to be put on improving headers and the like to visually divide each section.

Regarding color choice, I think moving away from the red/pink can work but there really isn't a unifying motif in the new design. Is blue the new color of last.fm? Up till now, blue has been a source of social information while the red was the aesthetic motif.

The left hand bar doesn't work for me visually. It's too light, and definitely looks uninspired. You know what works? The left hand bar in relation to the main section on the current widgets page http://www.last.fm/widgets/ It's functional, feels a bit more edgy, and is a different color from the border. There's just too much white in the new design!

I think the best thing that can be done to fix the new design is to start by reducing the amount of white and offwhite on the page.

If the current design ships, Last.fm: the Social Music Revolution will become Last.fm: social music (brought to you by CBS!)

The slogan needs to stay. The visual aspect of the site needs to inspire the same emotion as the slogan.

Ugliness of Facebook? Facebook looks like this, because it has to be functional. Ugliness is a word that better describes MySpace. But saying that Facebook design is good, doesn't mean that Facebook design on Last.fm is a good thing!

As for the configuration thing... These changes should be visible only to me, or globally? Enabling it globally will produce chaotic and unconsistent layout across different users of Last.fm, thus disrupting the overall design of the Last.fm. I have always feeled that "Apple-will-take-care-of-this" feeling when using Last.fm. Everything setup for me, and setup wisely... If we enable this "rearrangment" options in Last.fm, what will distinguish it from a mash-up made from several social sites API?

But when it comes to the Dashboard, I have no objections. Dashboard is private thing, so a user should be able to personalize it as much as possible. But setting the frontpage for myself? This should be done for me. Sometimes it's good to trust in this manners to people who are pros in it. I'm only wondering where have they been during designing the beta-layout? The fact that people want to arrange it by themselves, just proves it is that bad! Till now, nobody requested such a feature. At least not as loud as now.

Do this damn design right, and set up everything for us, so we just can enjoy the music and simplicity of Last.fm or the only thing people will expect from Last.fm is their API...

Absolutely agree with most of you here... my beta profile looks too similar to my facebook profile (i have some last.fm applications installed there).

A new beta version is always a good news, but the design should keep the red colour and bigger charts, thats your mark.

PS: But, even with an unoriginal desing, last.fm will still be the best site on the net ;)

Pdrpdr said:
PS: I dont like the library, what is it for? It's only my overall chart with pictures?

The library keeps all your scrobbled music plus tagged, loved, bookmarked artists, tracks and albums.

For library issues please use this discussion thread: http://beta.last.fm/group/Last.fm+Beta/forum/95114/_/412841

All that white all the way to the edges of the window - so fashionable, so flat, so (at the risk of the millionth-mention prize) F*c*book. The current design is a great lesson in how to take text-and-pictures-on-white and give it depth and activity - the beta is sorely missing that bit of contrast in the page-background to pop the functional areas. Sigh.

That said, OMG TEH FUNCTOINALITY. Bravo the Library - now that's organizing data. Love the pop-down menus on tracks. Love the big fat player sitting top-right for users and artists. HOORAY for multiple playlists and editable loving. BOO for being late for work - can't wait to poke around some more.

i too agree with the general consensus so far: great functionality, but there's something unsettling with the design. not to say that i don't appreciate its cleanliness, but it seems to sacrifice much of the former individuality, and to an extent, the individuality of its users.

i say this because i find that my profile looks more like everybody else's than it ever has (not to say that my profile is particularly special). there's no more quilt, no more recent visitors, no shoutbox or "about me" without having to scroll, user icons are pretty tiny in many places, i don't feel that special as a subscriber, my top tracks (which i abhor) are more visible than my other charts, and so forth with what's already been said.

for a community built around music—an important aspect to someone's personality—i feel like i'm being inadvertently diminished.

how last.fm decides to visually distinguish itself from other social network sites is something i care about, but not something i can really speak to (i'm a coder, not designer :P). personally, i would like to see a design that didn't immediately remind me of facebook, but for what it's worth, i would still take this design over the old one.

and the library is just rad. being able to easily add artists i have in my collection but who i don't listen to on my computer is a HUGE deal. the larger pictures look great too. thanks. (though it would be nice if it were easier to close the "Done" page after adding artists to my library—the escape-key shortcut is a nice touch, though).

in any case, i'm going to keep exploring. this beta totally made my afternoon.

Lainagier said:
Love the pop-down menus on tracks.

I don't like it because it's too complicated to use!

Remember the "one-click-add-to-playlist-button" in the track lists of the non-beta?

Such one-click-buttons for Share, Love Track, Add tags, Add to playlist would be much better here!

Hey guys i agreed a few hours ago with all the facebook things... however after an hour or so it sunk in....

the new GUI is impressive and so ajaxy its awesome, you guys have done an awesome job, the top bar should look like the old ice blue last.fm ;) minus the block logo you used to have.

ahhh all these arguments remind me of the days you added depth, shadows and gradients to stuff on the last last.fm update.

the new site looks like it can be more sociable, and easier to find new music.

well done once again guys. absolutley love it.

Champ213 said:
I really wonder why the quilts have been removed.


I am missing these quilts too!

On the home page i can see some of my friends and what they are actually listening too.

1. Here the quilt is missing too!

2. Why there are only 5 of my friends listed and not all the 15 friends who are listed on my dashboard in the non-beta?