About Our New Look: The Netflix Review, Part Eleven

So Netflix launched its "new look." I've had a lot of folks write to me asking if the nettle blog was going to comment about the new look of Netflix. Here are my comments.

1. The Tabs
The very first moment I laid eyes on the "new look", the first thing I noticed was the tabs. And the very first thing I thought, before I read what the words were in the tabs, was this:

What I thought the new tabs were for, at first glance.

I thought, yes! Cool! Awesome! Not only Movies, but AudioBooks! And Video Games! Totally awesome!

Wishful thinking, alas. (But think for a moment how Wall Street would have reacted...) I was really hoping what Netflix was going to roll out was that which I think everybody deep down secretly wants Netflix to roll out: a rental service not just for DVDs, but also for audiobooks and video games. Maybe just video games at first, but certainly both of them eventually.

I have long kept my distance from audiobooks -- avoiding them for the weirdest reasons, like only old people listened to audiobooks, or audiobooks were for the self-help crowd. I literally have never bought an audiobook nor borrowed one from the library -- until this summer.

Prior to two separate very long road trips this summer, I stopped by the library and checked out some nonfiction books-on-tape, biographies and history titles. I was amazed! The hours flew by, and before I knew it, an 8-hour unabridged book was finished, and I was 900 miles further on the Interstate. I was sold. Audiobooks are wonderful --- that is, if the books themselves are wonderful and the person they hire to read them reads wonderfully. I would have preferred audiobooks in the CD format, but my library has a pitifully poor collection of them, so I had to stick with what they offered in cassette tape format.

But it got me thinking: audiobook rentals! Yes! Of course! Why doesn't Netflix rent them? It makes so much sense! The exact same business model --- renting audio CDs, use the same mailers, same postage costs, same inventory system, same, same, same. The only thing that's not the same is the size of the market, I suppose. Ok, so we'll work on that! :-)

You might say, you want audiobooks on the web, try Audible! And I would respond, I have, and I didn't like it, in fact I can't stand Audible. It's not a rental place, it's more like iTunes for books. That may be fine for some people, but not for me. What I want is Netflix for books. You hear me, Netflix? (Update, Sun 7 Sept 2003: See bottom of article for an update on audiobooks for rent.)

As for video games, well that's another natural offshoot of Netflix that again, I suspect everybody is hoping/waiting/expecting Netflix to offer one of these days. I've never owned a video game machine. Ever. Having played enough games on the PLATO system in years past, I know what kind of black hole, time-wise, computer games can be, and I've avoided video games for that reason. But if Netflix offered rentals, I might try them once in a while.

2. Whither Search?
But I digress. The tabbed interface launched as part of Netflix's recent site redesign was not to introduce non-DVD rentals into Netflix's inventory. Instead, it was to make more clear to customers exactly what the three components of the Netflix customers' web experience are: Browsing, Recommendations, and the Queue.

What the new tabs are actually for, at second glance.

There's only one problem.

There are four components to the web experience of Netflix. Not three. Three are indeed Browsing, Recommendations, and Queue.

The fourth one is Search, and Netflix has made what I believe is a big mistake in downplaying the search function of the site.

For example, as many Netflix customers have no doubt discovered, there's no longer a Search box on the Queue page.

And if you're like me (having rated 16,500+ movies on Netflix :-) you'll discover that the Search box is missing from other pages as well, for instance:

"There are no more movies for you to rate." Oh well!

and also here (this is what I see when I actually click on the Recommendations tab, now):

"You need to rate more movies." But there are none to rate!

Yes, that's right, the Recommendations tab becomes useless if you actually rate too many movies. Despite what Netflix tells you ("you need to rate more movies"). I'm going to cut Netflix some slack, a little bit at least, on this point because, after all, how many of its 1.x million customers have rated 16,500+ movies on the site? Probably not many. :-)

But all is not lost. There's a Search box on the Browse page. Whew. (Of course, the Homer Simpson School of Interaction Design: Want to search? Go to browse! D'oh!) But wait:

What I see when I click on the new Browse tab.

There are a couple things that catch my eye right away:

• The first recommended DVD is Untamed Heart, which long ago I had indicated Not Interested. Indeed, the Not Interested button is selected --- Netflix knows this is what I think of that DVD! And yet, Netflix tells me, "brian, based on your recent rentals and ratings, here are a few interesting movies you might enjoy ..." and shows a DVD I have indicated I am NOT INTERESTED IN as the first one in the list. What's up with that!?

• That cutesy colorful box on the right that says "Browse" and "About Our New Look". Um, okay, so what am I supposed to do about this? Click it? So I do. And I get a page talking about how wonderful Netflix's new look is. Guess what, Netflix? This should not take higher priority than Search. That simple. Want to brag about the new look? Fine. Put a link at the bottom of the page. Mention it on in bright flashy letters on the Netflix envelopes that arrive in the mail. But don't push SEARCH down the page. Search is important. I bet quite a few of your 1.x million customers agree with me.

• The navigation column is now on the right. It used to be on the left. Okay, so maybe not a big deal. But then, maybe it is a big deal. Turns out that if your browser window isn't sufficiently wide, you don't even see the navigation column and the search box. Maybe not a problem for most users, but I bet it's a problem for some users.

• The main browse functions have been largely pushed below-the-fold. Partly due to that pesky About Our New Look box and partly because of the space consumed by the cutesy grayed-out photos of CDs in the banner at the top of the page. All that fluff not only pushes down Search, but it pushes down the Browse links, including the Categories (ooh, no longer called "Genres" I see!).

3. Problems on the Individual DVD Detail Pages
Even on individual DVD detail pages, there are issues with the new design.

Potential for confusion: the navigation column

For instance, the new "MOVIE INFORMATION" box in the right-hand navigation column... what does that refer to? The DVD on the page, or some other page? It's color-coded in the same purple as the rest of the Browse motif, so maybe it has to do with any movies. If I click on "Critic Reviews", do I go to a new section of the site containing Critic Reviews? Likewise for Member Reviews, etc. Bottom line, I think there's a big disconnect between the links in this "MOVIE INFORMATION" box and the sections of the page, which, surprise, is what the links actually refer to.

Thank goodness there's a Search box on the movie detail page, by the way.

4. More Thoughts on Search
Two things come to mind about the fate of Search on the new Netflix site redesign.

First, I remember hearing a Netflix executive once tell me that the difference between Blockbuster and Netflix was that Blockbuster was a demand fulfillment business, and Netflix was a demand generation business. In other words, people flocked to Blockbuster to rent stuff they'd been told to rent as a result of the barrage of media advertisements and word-of-mouth. Ooh, the new Men in Black is out! Gotta run to Blockbuster and pick it up. (Note how Blockbuster will have dozens, even scores, of copies of the latest releases, to satisfy --- to fulfill --- that demand.) Netflix, on the other hand, has chosen not to compete with Blockbuster on this front (probably because if the 1.x million customers knew they could all get a copy of, say, Men In Black III, the day it came out, they all would do so, requiring Netflix to buy and stock 1.x million copies. Netflix tries that and adios Netflix. :-)

If you drink the demand generation kool-aid, you become a true believer in recommendations, and you build the business around them. That means throw relevant titles at the customer and hopefully within a click here and a click there, the customer will find something worth renting and click the "rent" button. Mission accomplished.

Demand generation suggests the emphasis be placed on browsing and recommendations rather than finding. No wonder, then, there's no tab for searching at the top of Netflix site pages now. I'm not necessarily recommending that there ought to be a Search tab. But I am thinking that Netflix has made a major miscalculation with the release of this new site redesign, and by de-emphasizing search, theoretically to more emphasize browse and recommendations, they're going to dismay, confuse, and frustrate a considerable percentage of their 1.x million customers. Like me, for starters.

I am a Netflix customer who sometimes doesn't want to browse because I know what I want and when I know what I want, I want Netflix to find it for me fast. Finding is accomplished through Searching, so the first thing I gotta to is search for the search box. In the "New Look", that requires more work than in the "old design". When some pages don't even have Search boxes on them, what do I click? Browse? Recomendations? Queue? Ugh.

Because Search has been relegated to second-class-citizen status, it gets bumped around on the new site. The risk one runs when one sticks variable-length content above something fundamental like Search in the navigation column is that the Search box MOVES. Moves DOWNWARD, inevitably. This is bad.

Why is it bad? Because Search is fundamental ---- something you don't mess with. Imagine if Google moved its Search box around on its home page and its other pages. World War III. Same with Yahoo.

By messing with its exact screen location from web page to web page on the site, Search is no longer a familiar function to users. Users can no longer habituate to it. The user-interface to Search stops being a simple mouse gesture --- an invisible, rote, mindless movement of the hand, as in the hand knows what to do --- but instead becomes something users have to focus attention on. Guess what: user interfaces are supposed to be invisible, mindless, requiring as little attention as possible to get something done. I think Netflix has violated this fundamental rule of design. Imagine if the turn signal in your car kept moving around. You come to an intersection, your eyes focused straight ahead at the goings on in the intersection, your hand reaching out for the turn-signal knob, and not finding it! "Sorry, at this intersection, the knob is six inches further down the steering column!" D'oh!

That's all for now. Please comment below. Did you find this interesting, infuriating, or incoherent? Let me know. Thanks.

UPDATE, 7 Sept 2003: Just a little update regarding the audiobook rentals a la Netflix. I noticed one of the Google ads above was for Books On Tape, Inc. Turns out they do something close to Netflix for audiobooks. 30 day rentals, you select titles through the website, then they mail them to you in a mailer which you return when you're done.

Posted by brian at September 6, 2003 11:13 AM