IMDb Name Page BETA OPT-IN

@renitajenkins​  Thanks for the feedback and for trying the beta.  The site is optimised for consumer customers, not professionals, sorry.   IMDbPro should provide better options for your needs, including control over your Known For credits (otherwise, this article describes their selection). 

There are some changes in the pipeline which address most of your other concerns — please see https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-name-page-beta-optin/62db09f1e232bb632089ba01?commentId=62e0407ac998636027adbcb8&replyId=62e2e0f327c9e55d81c71c01

For additional background on how we arrived at this design, please see https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-name-page-beta-optin/62db09f1e232bb632089ba01?commentId=62e591f927c9e55d81c798d9&replyId=62e6b0d71b2f176c00131e50 

Hope this helps. 

@revkarlee​ Thanks for taking the time to try the beta and to share your feedback.  There are details of some upcoming changes to the new design at https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-name-page-beta-optin/62db09f1e232bb632089ba01?commentId=62e2c60527c9e55d81c713c9&replyId=62e2dd17c998636027ae4ca3 

@Elwood_Blues​  Thanks for taking the time to try the beta and for your feedback.  I have just provided an update above which you may find helpful. 

As others have said: ask the members and get feedback on what they like/don't like before you make radical changes like this

Yes, this is exactly the purpose of this beta, sorry if that was not clear.  In addition, the design has been based on extensive customer research, including detailed analysis of feedback provided on Sprinklr and via the IMDb help desk. For example, people have been asking for years for things like adding names to lists; posters; the IMDb rating; their own rating; a simplification of the episode listings; more international support; better accessibility; all features of the desktop view to be added to the mobile view; and more.  Taking all of this into account, multiple designs have been presented to and tested with groups of customers with all levels of experience of using IMDb. The resulting design tested off-the-charts positive across the customer groups before we even started to build anything. 

It would be good to know which other entertainment (or otherwise) sites you visit on a regular basis as this will help the UX team understand the points of reference for your feedback.  Thanks. 

@Col_Needham​ Thank you for your explanations. Good to see that you are planning to have a more scaled-down version for those users who want that.

You mentioned that a majority of users who have switched to the new design have chosen to keep that design. Have you considered to get their feedback, e.g. via a pop-up or a survey invitation (via mail)?

A site I regularly visit for entertainment news is https://www.darkhorizons.com/all-stories, as you can see a very sleek, no-nonsense design.

@Col_Needham​ re. "It would be good to know which other entertainment (or otherwise) sites you visit on a regular basis"

For me, any other movie/entertainment website I visit is random per-topic, usually reached through web searches and references at Wikipedia. However I often skip visiting sites that I have learned have excessive or intrusive ads (ads in general are fine), autoplaying video, and similar annoyances, and prefer those that are more lowkey and/or serious in nature and appearance.

The only site I visit specifically is basically only Wikipedia, which has the huge benefit of being fast to load, non-flashy and most importantly; information dense.

While I acknowledge that the chosen design was rated highly (and honestly any modernized look compared 1:1 to the current would probably do that for most people), did that testing include usability testing?

I'd also be curious about the weighting between gaining new users and keeping the existing (and perhaps especially the contributing) users, i.e. when looking at the ratings of different levels of experience, as you say.

I'm possibly biased, but scrolling through the comments, as I see it, most complaints are about decreased information density, despite the new design being wider. And just overall less easy to parse. Which was exactly the same complaint levied towards the change of the title pages about 5 years ago.

@emjay86​ I strongly agree!

@emjay86​  Thanks for taking the time to try the beta and to comment here.  I have just provided an update above which hopefully will help here. 

@Zandiman​ You are correct!

@Zandiman​ Thanks for taking the time to try the beta and to share your feedback.  There are details of some upcoming changes to the new design at https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-name-page-beta-optin/62db09f1e232bb632089ba01?commentId=62e2c60527c9e55d81c713c9&replyId=62e2dd17c998636027ae4ca3 

@DBMcA​  Thanks for the bug report.  This is on the list of known issues which we will be addressing. 

@barrpub​ I agree. In addition, it is a cluttered mess. This new look needs to be scrapped.

@barrpub​ 

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0133597/

I didn't see it in the first set of cards, clicked the 25 More link, and then used ctrl-F in Chrome to find Bonanza in his credits.

Then click on his character name, and you can scroll through 90 episode titles.

I think I would have needed ctrl-F on the old/current view as well, because I didn't remember the years involved.

@barrpub​ Thanks for taking the time to try the beta and to share your feedback.  There are details of some upcoming changes to the new design at https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-name-page-beta-optin/62db09f1e232bb632089ba01?commentId=62e2c60527c9e55d81c713c9&replyId=62e2dd17c998636027ae4ca3 

@bderoes​ Thanks for your response...but your link is to the old, soon to be replaced, design.  I was responding to the new design in which this is apparently not possible. 

@barrpub​ 

No, the link was not to the old design. The same link works for old and new designs depending on which _you_ have active.

Here are screenshots of the new design:

@patty42​  Thanks for the additional feedback ...

The whole point of modern software platforms is that they offer flexibility in how information is presented; we're long past the days when hand-coded HTML restricted our design choices.

This is a fair point and we going to take this challenge back to the name page team to see if we can add a more tabular filmography view as an option. The point of the beta is to gather feedback and ideas like this.  The comments from you and other customers has been very useful in shaping the next steps.  

Hope this helps. 

@Col_Needham​ Col, thank you so much for listening and for agreeing to discuss this with the name page team. Obviously I hope they agree to do it, but even if they don't, at least we'll know that they have given it serious consideration. I think I'm not the only one who was concerned that with the deadline of "early August" fast approaching, the new name page might go by default, with only minor bug fixes being possible after that.

I think a good starting point for the format and content of a contributor's name page would be the current name reference view. It has served us well over the years and we are all familiar with it.

Assuming it goes ahead, if we can be any more help as its user requirements are being specified and it is being developed, let us know.

If at all possible, can you retain the current name reference page format (warts and all!) until its replacement is up and running, to avoid any "gap in the middle" problem once "early August" happens.

Again, thanks for listening!

@martin_695862​  Just on this point ...

I think I'm not the only one who was concerned that with the deadline of "early August" fast approaching, the new name page might go by default, with only minor bug fixes being possible after that.

Ah, the dates refer to the beta period, not the launch date. The beta will be running until early August at which point everything will revert to the previous look irrespective of whether you are opted-in to the beta or not.  We have actually not set a launch date as it depends on the feedback plus the number of new bugs detected. Since there is plenty of feedback already and several gnarly new bugs, we have quite a lot of new work before launch.  Even when we launch, it will be a slow rollout over a long period of time while the testing continues. 

I understand where the launch confusion originates as the FAQ on the launch is a little too keen (but still vague at least) so I will point this out to the team.

Hope this helps. 

@Col_Needham​ 

Perhaps there should be a link to the help page in this thread and in the general help site.

@Peter_pbn​  Good point, thanks.  We have let the team know.  The beta will be ending next week so the original thinking was not to add a direct link on help.imdb.com, but there may be even more questions when it is no longer accessible. 

@martin_695862​  There’s now some additional context on the process available at https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-name-page-beta-optin/62db09f1e232bb632089ba01?commentId=62e591f927c9e55d81c798d9&replyId=62e6b0d71b2f176c00131e50 

@98lwatso​ " it's not even in chronioligical order"

At a quick check for one particular actor, comparing old format versus new format, it looks as if the order of the titles is the same (reverse chronological) in both formats, if you allow for the new format being two columns so the order is row1/col1, row1/col2, row2/col1, row2/col2 etc.

I admit that I was looking to see if there were any titles that appeared in the old list that didn't appear in the new one (I always try to "break" something new when I'm testing it!), and I was surprised (and pleased) to see that there didn't seem to be any. Of course with the new format I had to click "More" many times to advance to the next group of titles.

Of the various problems with the new format, I would rate them (most serious first):

- the "More" links: there needs to be an option (preferably a sticky user-specific option) that displays all the credits (both movies and all episodes of a TV series) at once; increasing the number of options per "More" link is not the solution (note that, Col!), because any finite number is the problem

- the way in which the right-hand "More to explore" column is now displayed: previously if the browser window was narrowed, that column was simply truncated at the right hand side, but now it wraps below the filmography, "trapping" the "Update" button at some arbitrary place on page between the end of the filmography and the start of the "More to explore", rather than keeping this button close to the bottom of the page. This means I have to scroll up from the bottom to hunt for the button - waste of time

- the two-column "Known for" and "Actor" sections: I would advocate losing the "Known for" altogether and listing purely in reverse-year order

@98lwatso​ 

and an option to change the order of the titles; either by release date or alphapbetically for instance.

Such options are still available in the menu (All Topics -> Credits)

@martin_695862​ OR... scrap the whole New page and keep things as they are. Seriously, are these designers for real? Do they know how absolutely awful the New page is? Why would they make navigation more difficult? Why would they make information less clear?

@98lwatso​ Thanks for taking the time to try the beta and to share your feedback.  There are details of some upcoming changes to the new design at https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-name-page-beta-optin/62db09f1e232bb632089ba01?commentId=62e2c60527c9e55d81c713c9&replyId=62e2dd17c998636027ae4ca3 

@ACT_1​ The film credits are bundled and selective rather than simply in generally chronological order.  Difficult to find the film credit you seek.  For example, "David Canary" was a regular on Bonanza for several years...but is no where to be found in his film credits grouping.  Really an unusable design for this bassic purpose.  

@barrpub​  It's right here once you expand the acting credits (as noted separately the number of credits displayed by default is part of the beta):

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0133597/ 

Hope this helps.

@Topcat​ Thanks for taking the time to try the beta and to share your feedback.  There are details of some upcoming changes to the new design at https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-name-page-beta-optin/62db09f1e232bb632089ba01?commentId=62e2c60527c9e55d81c713c9&replyId=62e2dd17c998636027ae4ca3 

@Col_Needham​ As the poster points out, it is almost impossible to locate certain specific film credits easily, if at all.   I can see if your new design were the first design, but to replace a functional product with a defective design is a head-scratcher. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

@barrpub​  Thanks, but this is an opt-in beta preview of a work-in-progress for feedback; nothing has been replaced. 

@Col_Needham​ There may be hopes of new revenue streams from the new design but apart from that, it's just  pretty to look at  but far less useful. 

@Col_Needham​ Col.,I fear with all the time and effort devoted, chances are you will go forward with the new design(particularly if trhe designer pitchs the new $$$ opportunities. 

@barrpub​  The (new) context at https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-name-page-beta-optin/62db09f1e232bb632089ba01?commentId=62e591f927c9e55d81c798d9&replyId=62e6b0d71b2f176c00131e50 might be helpful. 

It would be good to know which other entertainment (or otherwise) sites you visit on a regular basis as this will help the UX team understand the points of reference for your feedback.  Thanks. 

@Creature​ Thanks for taking the time to try the beta and to share your feedback.  There are details of some upcoming changes to the new design at https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/imdb-name-page-beta-optin/62db09f1e232bb632089ba01?commentId=62e2c60527c9e55d81c713c9&replyId=62e2dd17c998636027ae4ca3 which address your points