UX-O-METER #02: Analyzing Disney+ platform usability
The story behind the design
Welcome back to this initiative where we analyze the usability of different platforms. In this case, we are going to go deep in Disney+, the new VOD platform that wants to compete against the best ones; Netflix, HBO or Amazon Prime Video. You can take a look at our previous analysis of these three platforms here.
As an early adopter of any technology I wanted to take a first look to see how Disney did it, and I have to say that it kindly surprise me how good the interface looks to be the first version, having used all these platforms I would say that it competes one to one with the bests and even goes beyond some of them.
This usability analysis will take the main functionalities of the platform:
Analysis
I will be doing the analysis from three different devices; an Android smartphone, iPad, and SmartTV. Each functionality will be summarized with the strengths ( ✅), improvable (⚠️), and weaknesses (❌), taking as reference some of the J.Nielsen 10 Heuristic principles published in the past by Tomàs Modroño.
Before starting with the functionalities I would like to emphasize that the experience within platforms is almost the same. The product managers of Disney understood that its product will be used likewise of the device and invested time with the design team to find a way to have the same layout independently from the device, which sure it helped both design and development teams.
Login
- ✅ An easy two-step process, the first with the email, and the second with the password.
- ✅ Although mobile devices have a system back button, for consistency with the other devices is a good practice to keep the app back button.
- ✅ The show/hide icon that allows users to see the password and the case sensitive indicator are good UX practices.
- ⚠️ In 2020, is it essential to add a two-step login? We saw a lot of platforms that have an amazing one-step process.
- ❌ Having the prices and conditions below the “Start 7-day free trial” button is a very bad practice. As a user, you expect to have all the related information above the button, so you can decide whether to click or not.
- ❌ Different color and typography style of the “Sign up” and “Forgot password?” links.
- ❌ The “Login in” button on the landing page looks more like a link than a secondary button. That style is used in the app for lists.
Profile
- ✅ Easy to use profile screen, with a small list of options that don’t lead to confusion.
- ✅ Having a lot of avatar options to select the icon grouped by category gives it a touch.
- ✅ As a person that loves to watch films in English, with a Spanish mother tongue, having an option in the profile creation that allows you to change the default app language depending on who is using is a good functionality.
- ⚠️ Having different profiles on top without separation from the list below indicates that all the profile options are going to change when I select a different one, but the reality is that it only affects the watchlist.
- ❌ I can’t find logic on the screen navigation, some times you expect a horizontal transition between screens but then a pop-up jumps; and others, you expect a pop-up and it is a transition, this blows a little bit your mind.
- ❌ The “who’s watching?” screen is confusing, the only way to arrive there is by clicking the “Edit profiles” button on the profile screen and then clicking “Done” on the edit profile screen. There is a hidden screen that doesn’t provide any value and when you find yourself in it, you don’t know what to do.
- ❌ The “Help” option on the list opens a browser, but no one indicates you that.
Homepage
- ✅ What indeed, was a nice surprise the first time I accessed the app, was to see that you have a horizontal menu with each of the core brands so you can quickly access.
- ✅ The “Continue watching” category is very useful when you are watching a tv show, you can click and continue watching the show or you can go to the TV show detail. It is also very helpful to have the information about the remaining time.
- ✅️ In the past years, we are seeing a common trend in the mobile and tablet app industry that replaced the hamburger menu for a bottom bar menu, this is due to the fact that mobiles doubled their sizes in last years and the reachability of the devices made the bottom bar menu the best option. What Disney understood is that TV app has a different usage so they implemented a lateral menu to help users find what they are looking for in a reachable way.
- ⚠️ There is a “Continue watching” category but it’s not visible in a first glance, what makes you scroll down to continue watching the film.
- ❌ Having this horizontal menu with each of the core brands is good, but what happens when you want to see what’s beyond those brands? Then you have a problem… it can be an odyssey to find this material.
- ❌ The first row is dedicated to banners for new releases, the problem is that when you click over you expect to go to the episode in particular but instead you go to the detail and if you click the play button it reproduces the first episode and not the one announced in the banner.
Navigation
- ✅ The season dropdown opens a full-screen pop-up with a vertical scroll list that makes the selection easier for all kinds of users.
- ✅ With one simple click, you can start watching an already started TV show. With two clicks you can see almost all the content in the platform.
- ⚠️ When you are in the film detail and want to move from “Suggested” to “Extras” intuitively I swipe left expecting to move from tabs, but the functionality is not available… yet :’(
- ❌ As I mentioned before, there’s a lack of consistency between navigation, you never know exactly if the next click will open a pop-up or will move horizontally to the next screen.
- ❌ Inconsistency between platforms. In mobile, moving from home screen to a movie detail opens a horizontal pop-up with a back button while in iPad it opens a pop-up with a close button.
- ❌ If you open a suggested film from a film detail, it will open a pop-up. If you open again another suggested film in this new detail, it will open another pop-up. If you do it endless times you will have endless opened pop-ups which you will need to close by clicking to the back button… WEIIIRD!!!!
TV show/film Detail
- ✅ Having the cast button always visible helps to cast on the TV every time you want.
- ✅ In ongoing TV shows the play button switches to a Resume, where you can continue with the left episode.
- ✅ Option to download the complete season or individual episodes.
- ⚠️ There’s no indicator to help you identify the episode's record.
Player
- ✅ Having the functionalities of “Skip intro”, “Next episode” and “See all episodes” are useful and well implemented.
- ✅ Audio and subtitles can be modified at once on the same screen with a quick selection.
- ✅ The 10 seconds forward and backward buttons are very useful for those of us that take a nap and let the movie in the middle, that way you can go backward 10 seconds to watch where you left. Greetings for thinking in user efficiency.
- ⚠️ It would be great if you could deactivate the next episode autoplay in the settings.
- ❌ The next episode functionality appears at the end of the credits and not after the episode is finished.
Error messages
- ✅ The system error messages are shown in full screen with an illustration of Disney characters, it’s a nice touch that makes errors less painful.
- ⚠️ The tone of the messages doesn’t quite fit with the illustrations. After seeing the image you expect to read a closer, original, and more funny message.
- ❌ Buttons in error messages look more like a link than an actual actionable button.
¡I want you to UX-O-METER!
I want to say again that this is a very good first version of an app, neither Netflix, HBO, nor Amazon Prime had all these functionalities on the launch version. This makes Disney + on the run to beat all the other platforms.
As Buzz lightyear says:
To infinity…and beyond!
I hope you really enjoy reading this analysis. We will release soon our next UX-O-Meter, stay tuned on our blog for new updates!
Did you like it? Is there anything I missed that you want me to tell? Let a message in the comment section so we can talk about it :) . See you soon!!!
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