Last.fm’s new image-heavy and responsive redesign

It seems Digg isn’t the only platform from the early days of the web that decided to add a fresh coat of paint; Last.fm is cleaning up too. According to a blog post by the company, it has been working on the redesign for the last couple of months and after weeks of beta testing, it is ready to release it to the world.

Most of the changes can been seen on the artist, album and track pages, where the music-centred social network has introduced bigger images and a new look for the music player with extra listening stats.

“These pages are very rich in information, and as the site has developed we’ve added more and more content to them. Our user research indicated that it was time to step back and take a fresh look at how the pages were laid out,” says Last.fm’s Simon Moran.

Moran also notes that the new design “groups actions and information together logically” making it easier for users to find things on a page with an hierarchically determined layout. This new structure places the important things (such as things most people use most often) right at the top of the page.

The new look brings new page templates, which according to the company are more “flexible and dynamic”, that way user pages load faster without the hassle of waiting for pages to refresh.

“We’ve also taken the first steps towards “responsive design” – which means pages working just as well on your mobile and tablet as they do on a full-size web browser,” says Moran.

Moran reckons these are the first steps in an ongoing process to better Last.fm’s user experience.