4 ms·

Answer me this: Why does the interface suck so bad? How are pissing off 100 million subscribers good business? I apologize for not expanding my view with a det

Answer me this: Why does the interface suck so bad? How are pissing off 100 million subscribers good business? I apologize for not expanding my view with a detailed analysis, but damn. The update you guys promoted like half a year in advance made it even worse.

jedberg 9y ago
The interface is the result of tens of thousands of A/B tests. Every change is tested and produces greater general happiness. There is a probably a bimodal distribution on happiness, but they only optimize for the bigger curve instead of both, to reduce complexity. So while you, and an advanced user, might want a lot of advanced features, those same features scare away the majority of casual users. So it's a business decision to cater to the majority at the expense of the minority to reduce overall development cost.
- bronlund 9y ago
  I'm not talking about advanced features here, but stuff like that annoying zoom on hover and not remembering my sort preference and such. Just bad design! The most annoying thing maybe is that I can't hide stuff from the lists. Like when I watch 2 minutes of something and decides that I will never ever watch that crap again - that piece of crap will forever haunt my interface.
YCode 9y ago
Hulu did the same thing (with their Xbox app at least) recently and it really got me thinking. After a while I started to think maybe they aren't optimizing for what we might expect. By providing a UI that makes it slightly harder to find shows, displays as few shows at a time as possible and one that lures you into watching whatever is on the screen at the moment (even if just for a minute) they are effectively increasing the value of each piece of content and increasing the odds that you will watch whatever is on the screen while at the same time decreasing the odds that you will fall into choice paralysis. This also might make it seem like they have more new/relevant content than they really do. I'm not really well versed in this area, but I'd love to see an analysis of this hypothesis by someone who is more competent in this kind of design.
- wand3r 9y ago
  I never understood Hulu. 1) it costs money AND shows adverts. 2) owned by cable company 3) still can't get all the content owned by said cable company and 4) this horrific anecdote: Was in the car with my fitness obsessed gf, she'd never heard of pizza rolls. I said "Tontinos pizza rolls" near the device (potentially googled it but I doubt it) on her iPhone 6. Hulu from the device when we got back from car ride. First advert, Tontinos... Despicable.
blazespin 9y ago
I'd like to follow up with this, why can I tap scroll fast forward/backward on amazon prime but not netflix? Patent protection? It's a pretty awesome feature.
cholantesh 9y ago
Author works on performance, so he's probably not the person to ask...
- bronlund 9y ago
  Good point %]

jedberg 9y ago

The interface is the result of tens of thousands of A/B tests. Every change is tested and produces greater general happiness. There is a probably a bimodal distribution on happiness, but they only optimize for the bigger curve instead of both, to reduce complexity. So while you, and an advanced user, might want a lot of advanced features, those same features scare away the majority of casual users. So it's a business decision to cater to the majority at the expense of the minority to reduce overall development cost.

bronlund 9y ago
I'm not talking about advanced features here, but stuff like that annoying zoom on hover and not remembering my sort preference and such. Just bad design! The most annoying thing maybe is that I can't hide stuff from the lists. Like when I watch 2 minutes of something and decides that I will never ever watch that crap again - that piece of crap will forever haunt my interface.

YCode 9y ago

Hulu did the same thing (with their Xbox app at least) recently and it really got me thinking. After a while I started to think maybe they aren't optimizing for what we might expect. By providing a UI that makes it slightly harder to find shows, displays as few shows at a time as possible and one that lures you into watching whatever is on the screen at the moment (even if just for a minute) they are effectively increasing the value of each piece of content and increasing the odds that you will watch whatever is on the screen while at the same time decreasing the odds that you will fall into choice paralysis. This also might make it seem like they have more new/relevant content than they really do. I'm not really well versed in this area, but I'd love to see an analysis of this hypothesis by someone who is more competent in this kind of design.

wand3r 9y ago
I never understood Hulu. 1) it costs money AND shows adverts. 2) owned by cable company 3) still can't get all the content owned by said cable company and 4) this horrific anecdote: Was in the car with my fitness obsessed gf, she'd never heard of pizza rolls. I said "Tontinos pizza rolls" near the device (potentially googled it but I doubt it) on her iPhone 6. Hulu from the device when we got back from car ride. First advert, Tontinos... Despicable.

blazespin 9y ago

I'd like to follow up with this, why can I tap scroll fast forward/backward on amazon prime but not netflix? Patent protection? It's a pretty awesome feature.

cholantesh 9y ago

Author works on performance, so he's probably not the person to ask...

bronlund 9y ago
Good point %]