The Netflix UI Sucks Really Badly - Lets Count The Reasons Why

procrastilearner (61)in #netflix • 6 years ago (edited)

As the title says, the Netflix User Interface (UI) is atrociously bad. It is not user friendly, in fact, it seems to be almost user-hostile.

Let's count the ways that they have truly messed up the user experience.

Wasting Precious On-Screen Real Estate

There is only so much space on your screen so why does Netflix waste it all to fill the screen with one, and only one show or movie when you launch the app?
The odds are that you will not want to watch that one show so they force you have to scroll and scroll down to get to the show you do want to watch.

Making The Previews Start Up Intrusive Audio

Most people want their computers to be quiet until they launch something that is supposed to make noise.
Any app or web page that automatically generate noises is guaranteed to irritate most of the audience.
Netflix, don't start up audio until the user wants audio to start up.

Super Large Icons

This one goes back to the real estate problem.
I am not vision impaired so why is Netflix wasting precious screen spec with these super large icons?
This is a bad choice because now users have to scroll for miles and miles to get anywhere in the library.
If you are vision impaired this is a great option but that is what it should be: an option.

Icons That Change Size

In addition to putting super large icons they also change size whenever your mouse hovers over them. Bad move.
This changes the location of things that you may want to click and due to the lag it forces errors in your clicks and causes people to launch videos that they never intended to launch.

Slow, Oh So Slow

Not only do users have to scroll for miles to get to the content they want to watch the experience is slow as you have to wait for whatever large icon that they try to download in real time from their servers.

No UI Style Options

This is a mistake made by most social media companies. They force one style of UI onto their users.
Everyone is different, apps need to give users the option to skin their UI however they want. When will companies learn this?

Limited Keyboard Navigation Options

Not only is the scrolling atrocious but you also can't use the arrows keys to move around.
Users are stuck having to use the mouse for most scrolling activities.
Keyboard movements is one way people have to limit the RSI caused by mousing.

Conclusions

Netflix has made a large number of really bad choices in their UI. It is slow, has intrusive audio, forces you to scroll for miles and the confusing icon resizing is irritating and makes the site unenjoyable to use.