Netflix is ready to roll out its first major redesign in years, and it says the new version is "simpler, easier, and more intuitive." This is the streaming company's first big redesign since 2013, when it had around 30 million subscribers, compared to more than 300 million today, the New York Times reports. According to Netflix's official companion site, the redesign, for TV screens only, will roll out around the world starting on May 19, with users receiving a welcome message to walk them through the updates. The Verge reports that the Home tab will have "a huge banner front and center suggesting something you might want to watch," and users can scroll down for more rows of recommendations.
Netflix says the new interface is more "personal," reports NBC News. "We've been constantly improving it over the last 12 years, mostly behind the scenes, but now, thanks to a combination of new technology and the expansion of our entertainment offerings, we think it's time to take a giant leap forward," says Eunice Kim, Netflix's chief product officer. The Times notes that since most rivals "copied Netflix's TV home page" when setting up their own streaming services, the change could be very influential. The new design will show fewer titles, but when viewers hover over one, they will be shown a lot more information, with badges like "spent 13 weeks in the Top 10."
Steve Johnson, Netflix's vice president of design, likens the old design to a Blockbuster Video shelf, with rows and rows of titles, the Times reports. Kim says viewers used to be around evenly split between those who knew exactly what they wanted to watch and those who were unsure, but the latter group is getting bigger. "That just means our product needs to work even harder to kind of introduce these titles to folks for the first time," she says. Another big change in the update, which Netflix calls Eclipse: The home page will quickly update recommendations based on what users are searching for, something that could take up to a day in the older version. (More Netflix stories.)
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