Siri Johansson
Associate Principal Product Designer
Jordi Parra
Associate Principal Designer
Dariusz Dziuk
Principal Product Manager
Brendon Manwaring
Spotify Design Team
We just lately rolled out modifications to the ‘now playing bar’ (NPB) and the ‘tab bar’ within the app. And whereas these updates could be on the refined aspect, don’t be fooled into considering these are simply small tweaks. We’ve been finessing this worthwhile little bit of product actual property to make room for some larger modifications (extra on that later) all championed by a staff of designers with a imaginative and prescient for a greater app expertise.
Designers have good instincts. They know when to take large dangers that repay, and when to make a robust argument for prioritizing design- and experience-driven work over metrics-based function enhancements.
In the case of the current modifications to the NPB, the design groups who work on the app might see that by updating the UI, not solely might they enhance the expertise, they might make house for a few of the larger modifications that different groups needed to ship additional down the road, similar to bettering machine studying capabilities — an commentary that helped get stakeholder buy-in.
Making Room for Change
At Spotify, there are numerous groups contributing to the buyer cellular expertise and, for fairly a while, these totally different teams all discovered they had been going through the identical blockers when it got here to the NPB and the navigation. As static options, they took up loads of room within the app. It additionally wasn’t clear to all listeners that whenever you tapped the NPB, it could result in a extra immersive ‘now playing view’, the place you possibly can dive deeper into the artwork, lyrics, and story behind the music.
While the issues had been obvious to lots of people, getting fixes for them on a roadmap was troublesome — they wanted to show that these visible updates would primarily result in extra flexibility and unlock experimentation whereas additionally placing content material first and permitting creators’ work to shine.
In the tip, by pushing for a cleaner UI for the NPB and navigation, designers crafted a extra elegant house that enabled others at Spotify to construct extra with out including extra.
What’s new?
So how did the staff behind the brand new NPB unlock house? Here are the small however mighty modifications you will have observed within the app.
Adding transparency
With the brand new clear tab bar and floating NPB, there’s extra alternative for listeners to scroll, discover, uncover content material they will get pleasure from.
Aligning residence, search, and Your Library Headers
Aligning the textual content fashion of the header sections throughout tabs and making a constant placement for tab particular actions.
What comes subsequent?
While this primary section is primarily beauty, it units us up for larger modifications that may roll out quickly, whereas making the product really feel extra light-weight. So, within the close to future, you possibly can count on to expertise all the advantages of higher performance however with a lot much less muddle.