INTRODUCING: Updated IMDb.com homepage experience

What a terrible, terrible change. This simply doesn't feel like the IMDb, the best movie site and most complete database ever, it is simply a streaming service to watch popular videos and trailers, which I can find anywhere else in the Internet and in better designs and functionality.

Also you are hiding sections like news and polls where no one will find them.

The IMDb was unique, why do you want to lost what makes you special?

I will also avoid the homepage completely, it hurts me to see it as it is, I'll enter the databse through the polls page, make it my personal IMDb Homepage and navigate from there while this model exists, which for the sake of everything I hope it is really really shortlived and quickly forgotten.

I am VERY dissapointed with IMDB stuff.
I have been a faitful user for many years now. Never had any real complaint about this site. Just like Col himself has said in his latest new years' message "Feel free to let us know about any constructive criticism using our GetSatisfaction forum".

All right, I've had my problems with the new menu design, the new video player, the new homepage.
Maybe I should listen to Col's advice and contribute some feedback?
In hindsight, now I understand that it's really useless and those words were nothing but empty promises.
For TWO MONTHS now I am relegated to using my own shortcuts to get through to certain sections of the website, because your new menu design for tablets is missing direct links it once had.
For ONE MONTH I am forced to watch all of IMDB videos and trailers on your own YouTube channel instead of doing it right here on the website, because the new videoplayer is slow, uneccesary large and borderline unasable with its lack of X-out and mute by default.

I've described these problems in two separate threads twice, two months have passed and I got no answer from the crew, not even a simple "Thank you, we will look up onto this" or "This is the way it's designed from now on, sorry for the inconvinience". I just got NOTHING.

And now this homepage... I don't even wanna start, just + 1 to many points mentioned previously - the thumbnails are too big, the functionality is lessened, everything is designed with the phone browsing in mind and looks horrible on the desktop, it isn't the look of a database it's the look of a streaming site, and so on...

So now, adding to using my own bookmarks to get through to Coming Soon or Release Calendar section on tablet, and using YouTube to watch your own original IMDB videos, now I'm also given the joy to avoid the new homepage at all times and remember not to use my previous "IMDB/home" bookmark.
And this is what I'm supposed to "benefit from"?
IMDB, you've really failed me.

Dear IMDb Editors,

I would say, "That's one small step for IMDb Editors, one giant leap for customer dissatisfaction."

Do our feedback really matter to you? I have been a member to this awesome website for last 6 years (since 2014). During this time period you have,

1. Shut down IMDb Message Board.
2. Shut down 'Character' pages.
3. Shut down all IMDb 'Character' Polls.

And now,

4. Shut down the IMDb Poll section from the home page.

As an old IMDb Poll author, I believe for a poll author getting his/her poll featured on the home page is the highest honor for his/her. And now you have taken that happiness from us.

Also, about the website design, I prefer the old version to this new look.

-------------------------------

I know my feedback doesn't matter to you guys and the website design will remain as it is right now, just like you never changed your decision in the previous cases to satisfy the customer needs.

Also, I have a feeling that I may lose my IMDb account because of that 'modified' Neil Armstrong quote in the beginning.

Regards

DC

Hi, please find below some personal tips to improve the new home page:

1. Everything is too big: nowadays most desktop users have a 24" or 27" screen and on such a screen, the home page looks like an enormous mobile phone. Some items are really huge: they take one third of the screen. Please make everything a little bit smaller so you can fit more items on the screen. Now the overview is completely lost. On the old home page I had to click "page down" only 4x to get to the bottom, now it's 6x with much less information.
2. News is really important for everybody and a main reason to come back often, so please bring it back to the home page. Because isn't this essentially what you want: visitors who come back regularly?
3. Please keep a permanent "Featured Poll" on the home page which is visible without scrolling, because again, this is a reason for visitors to come back and to come on a regular basis. And please, please add a permanent link to the other polls because otherwise only a couple of 100 users will ever know that there are other polls somewhere out there on IMDb.
4. The "Recently viewed" section at the bottom takes a lot of space from the home page and is completely unnecessary. I don't need to be reminded each time when I visit the IMDb home page which searches I recently did on IMDb. A button in the drop down menu of my account with "recent searches" would perfectly do the same job and saves a lot of space, e.g. for a permanent spot of the "Featured Poll".
5. Finally don't overuse the right-scrolling, Netflix-scrolling or mobile phone right-sweeping or whatever you want to call it, because that's not what people do on a desktop. They can not scroll by touching the screen so you have to use your mouse to do this which takes a lot of time. Good tip: make the items smaller and make them all fit on one screen. You will get a lot more hits on all the items, I'm sure!

I hope you will take my constructive feedback into consideration which is really meant to improve the IMDb experience for everybody!

"The new homepage is designed to help IMDb customers..." Bla bla bla.

No, it is not. First, because we don't need help to find anything on the website. We're not children, we're not persons with learning difficulties either. Second, the new homepage is mainly designed to promote or sell something.
Have I said yet we're not stupid ?

Gil

I cannot help but notice that not a single person in this thread (and preceding ones too actually) concerning the new homepage design said something even remotely positive about it.
From what I can understand (again, I'm new here so it may be hard to tell who's who) it got to the point that even local Champions, Top Contributors and other high-ranking users are joining in the negativity chorus.
I mean, that really says something about the quality of changes made, now does it?

In case somebody from the team actually reads through this, I can also pinpoint that almost every single complaint concerns the same limited number of things, and they keep on repeating over and over again. Top3 would definetly be:
1. Everything is too large, swiping-based and phone-centric
2. News and polls are missing
3. Black background which greatly contradicts the look of all the other sections of the website

And the last thing I also wanted to mention. Or, to be more precise - to raise awareness in fellow users, who may read through this, since now the new homepage is available to all, many dissapointed IMDB members probably will read through this topic in the  following days, and the exposure here could be greater than that of a simple post.

I presume that this homepage is only the beginning.
I know a thing or two about webdesign and have the experience of managing a popular website.
What we see here (on the new homepage and menu) is a complete redesign from scratch, and if we do not presume that IMDB staff are incompetent (and they definetly aren't), no cheif-designer in his right mind would let the homepage contradict with the way all the other sections look and navigate.
Which means that what we see now only on the homepage could very well be the way the WHOLE site will look in a very near future.
You can see many signs pinpoiting in that direction for yourselves.

My goal in writing this is simply to raise awareness about the possible update, and at least try my best to prevent it from happening, because if it will - the current problem of just avoiding the new homepage will be peanuts compared with catastrophe of completely losing IMDB as a source of information.
Thank you for your attention.

"Customers".

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled What happened to the home page!.

This new homepage is garbage...at least give us the option of using the old home page which was more functional and user-friendly.

In my opinion, this is now a terrible home page. I want simple links & graphics. Period! Less is more. I like to see a few featured new trailers (with a link to all trailers), Movie and TV News, and a couple feature stories. Everything else can be under a menu link. 

Go back two generations because, frankly, this is like "New Coke!"

I've been an avid user of imdb since roughly 1998. For the first time in the history of using this site I feel as though I need to search out a new source for my news, latest flicks and upcoming/recently announced shows/movies. 

Please give us an option to use imdb as it was prior to this God awful design that was forced upon us. Don't be like so many other services (Plex for example) that decided they knew what we wanted even when there was numerous users booing the change. I guess though I can do to this site as I did with Plex. I found a better service with Emby and haven't looked back. Time to do the same with imdb I suppose. 

Wow...that is *not* an improvement...

This is the most disrespectful decision IMDb editors have ever made. For me it's an abomination for two reasons. I want to read the news and I can't because all I see is blackness, huge photos and videos. It's like Netfix. Yikes. Also it's a huge disaster for pollmakers such as me. As a fellow pollmaker said it's the biggest honor for us to see our polls in the homepage because they gather many votes. Now, with this so called 'new design' the polls gather 150 votes per day. It's meaningless. No one sees the polls because most of the users are disappointed. This thing has no benefit for the public. ZERRO CLICKS! That should be our answer. We should buck the system. I am a member of IMDb for 7 years and it's the first time I feel so empty for the site. I am really frustrated. You should have left the site the way it was. Every one of your decisions was disgrace. If the site isn't good enough for you you could ban the polls and erase them all. You could also delete IMDb Top 250 movies it's not Netfix like. One more thing you could do is prevent people from rating. You could make a rule that says 'only IMDb editors and staff have the privilege to vote. Make the site a small circle for you guys. I am being as sarcastic as I can because you don't seem to care about our complains. Also I have one question to make: why did you close the other thread about homepage? You didn't actually answer to one question and now you close it? Because you don't like the questions? Because they are judgemental? Well get used to it. You seem to be unfamiliar with the word 'democracy'. I hope your clicks go down to zero. Everyone should get what they deserve and that's what you deserve. If your goal was 'let's make it as unprofessional as we can so that people will hate it' you nailed it.

You have taken Internet's greatest website and turned it into a complete joke.