Survey: Streaming User Interfaces Don’t Click With Consumers
The launch of Max late last month also launched a fresh wave of complaints about the redesigned service’s user experience, which is frankly not a big improvement from the former HBO Max.
Bugs and glitches will certainly be ironed out as the new platform develops, but Max looks destined to join the roster of mediocre streaming UIs — a not so proud lineup that includes just about every SVOD service on the market.
But don’t take our word for it. After Variety published industry insiders’ fairly brutal assessment of streaming interfaces, Variety Intelligence Platform enlisted market research firm SmithGeiger to survey consumers’ thoughts on the topic.
The results reveal a striking reality: Consumer opinion on streaming UX is tepid to negative almost across the board. While the largest plurality of those surveyed (39%) described the overall quality of the streaming user experience as “very good,” a larger total percentage (42%) said the overall experience was “good,” “fair” or “poor.”
To be clear, “these are pretty low satisfaction numbers,” SmithGeiger SVP of Insights & Strategy Dan Reines told VIP+. “Usually on a five-point scale, we would want the top two boxes (‘very good/great’) to be in the 70s or so, and the top box (‘great’) should be the biggest number.”
He added, “The fact that there are so many people at ‘good’ — the middle choice — suggests that people are kind of shrugging … Nobody’s particularly thrilled with the general user experience.”
That said, there is one service that unsurprisingly stands above the rest in consumers’ eyes. Netflix commands the most user satisfaction with its interface, with 42% of those surveyed rating it the best on the market.
No other service comes close: Hulu stood in second place with 12%, followed by Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ (both with 10%) and then HBO Max (8%). Clearly, as far as consumers are concerned, “it’s Netflix and ‘everybody else,’ ” Reines said.
There was no such consensus — or rather, a different kind of consensus — on the worst user interface, however. More than a third of respondents said none of the nine options stood out as worse than the rest, indicating that when it comes to “everybody else,” consumers see every service as more or less equally bad.
The question, then, naturally becomes how these services can combat this perception. The obvious suggestion is to look to the market leader’s example, though most, if not all, of the other major SVODs have already cribbed plenty from Netflix — the “tile” layouts, the category/genre-based rows, playing next episodes automatically to encourage binge-watching and so on.
Based on the survey results, what users value most about Netflix is its overall ease of use, and the ease with which they can find and resume programs they’ve previously watched. Similarly, when those who did select a “worst” option were asked to name reasons for their choice, one factor tended to crop up again and again: “Hard to navigate or find the content I want to watch.”
This was the top reason cited for six out of the nine options, while easy-to-find content and a clear process for resuming content were two of the top five most important UX attributes consumers cited overall.
VIP+ has previously argued that streamers neglect the content discovery experience at their own peril, and this survey should make it clear that is indeed the case. With subscriber growth stagnating, catalog volumes shrinking and original content output trending downward (even without the writers strike), streamers need some degree of reinvention to boost user satisfaction and keep churn in check.
But this need not be difficult. With all the conversations around AI’s potential impact on the entertainment business, for example, why is there so little discussion of how it could be put to use improving streaming recommendation algorithms or customizing homepages to users’ preferences? To say nothing of the opportunities for creativity in design and innovation beyond pale imitations of the Netflix model. Content may still be king, but user experience is its castle, and it could stand some serious renovations.
