IMDb Name Page Redesign

Yes, there are a few awesome features. For this reason, I've only really complained about the JavaScript bloat present in the new platform as shared by both IMDb title pages and IMDb name pages, in the default view, likewise how the "all topics" menu isn't pre-loaded when the page is visited. The way "known for" looks now is such a painful waste of space (as it is supposed to look like a row of contiguous posters), but that can probably be fixed with a bookmarklet or monkey script. I've not really bothered to reflect on and complement for the cool new features, as they don't really matter than much.

@Col_Needham​ Thanks but I'm discontented with the option to every time I visit IMDB have to click on All Topics>All Credits So if you don't bring it back unfortunately I won't use IMDB anymore to check on actors and directors, I'll go now in pursuit of another site ( luckily if there is any other than this ) I commented on this with friends and most of them are dissatisfied

I'm sorry but the new layout is not good or interesting and frankly, awkward to navigate. There was nothing wrong with the old version. For example...

Discerning IMDb's last generation software platform from the IMDb's new software platform isn't too difficult. Thus far, any page besides a base IMDb name page, a base IMDb title page, the IMDb home page or certain IMDb search results pages is basically generated on the older system.

@xianjiro​ Exactly. I'd bet people who (like me), tried the beta, hated it, and went back to the option of the old page, never had a reason to complain until the change was forced upon them. That means the communication back to the designers had a small percentage of heavy critics, if any. So if that's the public group the designers used to assure approval, it wasn't a very good way of polling. Hopefully they will read through some of the comments here and rethink. Until then, when I look up a name and want to see if that name is in a specific movie or show, now I need to scroll down, find the "See all" button, click it, wait, and then do ctrl-F in chrome to find the show I'm interested in. Instead of just ctrl-F. Then if I want to see the episode details... oh, don't start me on that programming fiasco. Sure, the new initial page load saves bandwidth because it doesn't load the entire list. But the only reason bandwidth became a problem was because they added unneeded pictures to each line. What is it about people who see a pretty interface saying, "I really like it", even when usability is compromised? And please don't respond to this with the repeated, "All Credits" post. It's not the same thing. Not anywhere near the same thing.

@xianjiro @martin_695862​ wrote: I am also concerned that IMDB may start to redesign the layout of all its other pages as time goes on - that this is only the beginning of further reduction in usability and naff layout that looks good on a mobile phone for casual browsing but which is dumbed-down, cut into bite-size chunks, and generally worsened as a serious research/contribution tool. Yeah, this is kind of my fear going forward as well. Unfortunately, this is not just a fear, but reality: When will other pages switch to the new technology and new design? Currently, home/where-to-watch/photos/videos/title are already modernized on IMDb. We plan to modernize subpages next and eventually the rest of the site. Source: https://help.imdb.com/article/issues/GMWASETVPLJYXEZE Discussion of the impending changes: https://twitter.com/skogesT/status/1598954885461921792

For the most part, public outcry is not really a thing in regards to website redesigns. A few times before on this thread, the YouTube redesign of autumn 2022 has been mentioned, and while hundreds of millions of people noticed the design, only something like several dozen people have taken a little bit of time to post public opinions about it. Reddit is probably the only website in recent history that had website maintainers respond in an acquiescing manner to visitors' complaints. (In other words, the old Reddit layout exists but it is hidden.) Granted, YouTube has always been very gradual about its redesign processes, casual visitors won't even notice changes. IMDb unfortunately has seen numerous jarring changes since 2017, but even so, the various features (apart from the site-native message boards) forgone had a very tiny fan base, which sort of implies underutilization anyway.

@jeorj_euler​ as well as the massive loss of enjoyment of this site which the catastrophic removal of the message boards caused, I also miss "Where Are They Now?", alternative names, and character pages. The character pages were a wonderful idea, being able to instantly look at somebody like Sherlock Holmes, and see all the people who had played him, photographs, quotes, and wiki bios. Crazy that a movie site has no way to study characters actually. Not to mention all the work which people put into them which was instantly lost.

@Rake1204​ Using the collaboration search for titles, I infer that the page of your snapshot is for https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000759/ and I don't have a problem viewing his credits. What OS/browser are you using? Mine is Windows 11 and Chrome 108 or Firefox 107.

Might be interesting to check the total amount of bytes of data is downloaded just to properly display a page on the new software platform. It's sure to be way over half a megabyte, which doesn't seem like much, until things add up. Even with a fast connection, a fast GPU and lots of RAM, delays will emerge whenever any of these things are somehow (and for whatever reason) operating at nearly capacity. There is a thing called virtual RAM too, or swap, and it is slower than raw volatile RAM.

@jeorj_euler​ Yes, it's useless.

Right, but that is no excuse for designing the "all topics" to be dependent upon AJAX/fetch, which creates somewhat of an obstacle to forcing it to load automatically as the page loads. The reason for having all these third party scripts (all of my own design) in the first place is because of the terrible aspects of the design (or broken things) that have existed since apparently 2010. The situation is even worse now, because the new design is made in such a way as to "resist", so to speak, these corrective scripts. Because IMDb only party-way through the software platform migration, I'm inclined to wait until it finished before reworking the scripts.

@Col_Needham​ You've got to be joking. I've just read dozens of others complaints on here! It is still doing it, and I can't even see a person's history now at all. Why did you change something that worked fine before? I won't be using this anymore. Truly hideous layout and even worse service.

@zydecopolka​ You even have to search for the bio link now. And even worse, the bio link only has some of the relevant info on each celebrity -- for example, their social media links are not included on their bio pages. With the old name pages, everything used to be in one place, at a glance: the person's birthdate and birthplace, the intro paragraph from their bio, their social media links, their trivia, and most importantly, their full filmography. Now, with the redesign, only some of that stuff is available on the name pages, and all of it is broken up into several different subpages (most of which are not easy to find the links to directly from the name pages). A lot of people have complained about the "Known For" part of the redesigned name pages. But that isn't really the problem, since that also existed on the older version of the name pages. The bigger problem is the removal of the full filmography from the name pages, combined with placing movie images/posters into the truncated filmography that now appears on the name pages. Those changes were unnecessary and they are causing the vast majority of the problems people are complaining about here.

@Col_Needham​ Filmographies Regarding people's full filmographies, I didn't realize it until you brought it up, but apparently that info is still there on name pages, but only with a bunch of counterintuitive clicks to pull it up. A related problem is that the name pages seemingly arbitrarily choose which project type to feature as the default for each person, which leads to odd results, like making it appear at first glance that Fred Armisen is more known for being a composer than an actor, and Barbara Streisand more known for being an actress than a musician. (I realize some of these problems predate the redesign, but these problems are more pronounced with the redesign, because the different modules for accessing filmography credits are now somewhat buried behind counterintuitive filter buttons rather than text labels like the old design.) Fred Armisen https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0035488/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220408042709/https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0035488/ Barbra Streisand https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000659/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210304020404/https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000659/ "Did you Know" section Here are some examples of name pages where the "Did you Know" section has been removed in the new redesign: Tiphany Adams https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4970055/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191028134257/https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4970055/ Hannah Diamond https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5730258/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210804170635/https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5730258/ Arthur Hughes https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0400458/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210309123416/http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0400458/ Birthplaces Regarding birthplaces, with the old design the birthplaces were prominently stated at the top of the page next to the birthdates. The new redesign only states the birthdates, with no mention of birthplaces, at the tops of the pages (except for people who have narrative bios that mention their birthplaces). That led me to believe that birthplaces are now omitted from name pages. After receiving your response I looked more closely and realized that birthplaces are still on name pages, but they are placed way down the pages toward the bottom, after some irrelevant stuff (like the huge module for "IMDb Best of 2022"). I prefer listing birthplaces along with birthdates at the tops of pages, as in the old design. Subpages and "All Topics" menu As for the subpages, while it's true that these have always been separated from each other, my point is they were all more easily accessible from each person's name pages, which was essentially a usable "master page" for each person. Now, with the redesign, the links to many of the subpages are buried under the cryptically labeled "All topics" menu, which is practically hidden in the top right corner of the page, separated from other labels that clearly have something to do with the person (like "Biography" and "Awards"), making this stuff nearly impossible to find unless someone tells you where to look. Here was my feedback on this issue, previously stated in this same thread: The choices I see in the top right-hand corner are "Biography," "Awards," "Trivia," "IMDbPro," then a button with a search image and the vague text label "All topics," then a button to share on social media, in that order. The top part of the screen should be completely redesigned to include more options in a true top menu. I would list them in an order something like this: "Biography," "Credits," "Photos," "Awards," "News," "Did you know?," and then maybe a "More" option. Each of those choices should allow for a pull-down menu from which additional choices could be selected. The vague "All topics" button could be done away with, and the choices currently presented there could be incorporated into the menu items in my list. That would allow for a true top menu that would be more intuitive and useful, and it would not take up much more room than the current design. p.s. Also, "IMDbPro" could be eliminated from the "top"/"corner" menu, because there is already a link to "IMDbPro STARMETER" right below it. Part of the confusion for me with the current corner menu is that "All topics" is separated from the other choices by the intervening "IMDbPro" option. This makes it look like "IMDbPro" and "All topics" do not relate to the celebrity on whose page these choices appear, but rather are general options to log in to IMDbPro or explore "all topics" on IMDb generally. By the way, thanks for causing me to take an even closer look at the redesign. I am realizing that it is not quite as bad as I had believed. A lot of the problems actually have to do with how the information is presented, rather than the absence of the information. But overall there are still a lot of improvements that could be made...

@Col_Needham​ Specific things missing: Related News (saw that it's on the left instead of right now) On Prime Video User Polls (I have seen this on other people) Example: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1259728/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220827034346/https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1259728/ I confirmed using the filmosearch for this person that IMDb has 9 Prime Videos, so that category is not absent for lack of data.

@Col_Needham​ And if a name is linked in the introduction of a poll, the poll should also appear on the name page. This appears to be happening correctly. There is a small issue with the poll widget that I tried to report in the feedback form during testing: No thumbnail image shows up when the poll is based on an image list. Example: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6854116/

@Col_Needham​ Having Prime Video information on each title is not comparable to having a list of titles that are available. I'm reporting the absence of this widget from the old layout: (Side note: amazing that you've already forgotten that Related News was on the right column of the old layout. Hence my missing it initially in the new layout.) Edited to add: It might be nice to see a Watch Options link in the upper part of the Name Page (over the Add to List button, as it is on Title pages) with the Prime Video list as the pop-up.

Great catch, bderoes! I tended not to think of that feature since I'm often looking at the name pages about people who aren't credited in a movie or show that is available to watch for free (or so) on Amazon's streaming service with a Prime subscription.