Tag: user interface

Trying to cancel a Spotify account

I’ve used Rdio for about a month now. Earlier I wrote how much I love the service. I still do, it’s tremendous. When Spotify launched in the US I figured I’d sign up for their premium account and give it a shot for a month.

After a few weeks of using the service it’s clear that it’s not for me. I don’t like how Facebook determines the entire social graph. 1 I don’t like how it automatically crawled my iTunes library without my approval. 2 Mostly though I just didn’t like the service as much as Rdio.

Since my premium account was $9.99 a month I wanted to cancel it while it was fresh on my mind. Turns out Spotify makes it pretty difficult to do this. You first have to head to your subscriptions page. There you see this:

Silly me for thinking I’d find a nice “Cancel” link on that page. You have to go all the way to the bottom where you’re able to view your options for leaving. Okay, that’s not terrible. A bit obtuse of a UI, but I’ve seen worse.

That “View your options” link then takes you to this screen:

Alright, that’s just lame. I’m trying to end my paid subscription. I clearly already know what a premium subscription to Spotify offers because I already dealt with all the marketing copy when signing up. Bombarding me with the bullet points again seems desperate.

There’s still no cancel link though. I guessed that it was the “Why do you want to leave?” bit all the way down at the bottom. Turns out you have to go to this page where you then have options for telling Spotify why you are cancelling.

In contrast, Rdio has a Subscriptions tab in my account settings. There, right at the bottom highlighted in red text is a button that reads “Cancel subscription.” Simple. Easy. Intuitive.

When paying for web services trust is a huge factor. It may seem counter intuitive, but the easier you make it for users to leave the more likely they are to stay. They’ll simply trust you more for being upfront with them. Rdio understands this. Spotify clearly does not. Don’t hide vital account functions like cancellation behind tongue in cheek questions like “Why do you want to leave?” I know why, just let me do it and get out of my way.

Notes:

  1. A Facebook account which I don’t have.
  2. That part definitely wasn’t cool, my local drive is separate from your web service, keep your hands off of it.

The Hit List interface

I’ve had a license for The Hit List from back when it was in beta. It’s been a long time coming but it’s now at 1.0 with a companion iPhone app so I thought I’d give it another shot. There’s some small interface touches that make it a real joy to use.

The filing system for tasks in your inbox is outstanding. With a task selected pressing just “f” brings up the above. Start typing the name of a list and sidebar highlights those with matching letters. Pressing up and down moves between lists to file the task under.

If you sort a list by date you get these great little dividers throughout the list. Slick way to indicate time as well as break up a longer list.

The best part of the user interface is how blazing fast and unobtrusive the sync is. It doesn’t block task input, finishes in a few seconds, and in my testing is absolutely reliable. Pretty great app that’s well worth the wait.