INTRODUCING: Updated IMDb.com Title page experience

@linux_lad 

Sorry, no, this is all I see:

That has to do with the difference between the way the two browsers process HTML (along with CSS) and render web pages. Apparently, Firefox may not allow scroll bars to be deleted, so to speak. Technically there is at least one trick (for web developers) to accomplish the elimination of inline scroll bars in the perspective of Firefox, though. Cutom scrollbars can be created via Scalable Vector Graphics too, but making them functional seems to require JavaScript.

I can't remember the last time a I visited an IMDb photo gallery without JavaScript enabled, but it was probably two years ago. I do notice that certain things don't load unless JavaScript is enabled, which allows a sort of detection of whether particular web page elements are visible in the browser window at given moment.

@ApplePie  We have not made any changes to the name pages.  It sounds like you have selected the “Name page: Display acting credits separately for Movie and TV” option on the site preferences page by accident — you should be able to reset this yourself.

For more information, please see https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/general-information/site-preferences/GDL9NWJRKWRH5L6K 

Hope this helps. 

@Labo411 

 Joined Wed, Jul 7, 2021 

? ?

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon
https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/introducing-updated-imdbcom-title-page-experience/60a40631c1307254c6cc1b0d?commentId=60e37e2ea80b9421431ec58d

.

@delmedia

I don't think he's "willing" to explain. Rather he is stubbornly telling us we don't know what we want and we don't know what is best for us. Sad as it is, that means no more use of IMDB. It's not worth it if they act and think like that. Instead we have to migrate to https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-godfather  .

@ACT_1 

Jeff Bezos is going to space.

New Amazon boss is Andy Jassy, he has twitter account, we should write him and tell him that we don't like new IMDb layout because it is tooooo slow and clunky and messy and not user friendly at all and did I mention too slow and clunky?!? 😵😵

@plur62 

and tell Andy Jassy there are way too many irritating annoying ads for Amazon products 😜

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Jassy

Website Andy Jassy on Twitter
https://twitter.com/ajassy

.

The previous design for the mobile web browser was different from this odd amalgamation of the respective experiences for desktop and mobile. It's like the designers took the stuff that is present the the desktop web interface but was absent from the mobile web interface, and just crammed it all in there, and then decided to turn the rectangular thumbnail images into bubble thumbnail images.

We should bear in mind that a lot of the posts within this thread were created from other threads. If this thread is closed, the forum administrator won't have anywhere to redirect new posts pertaining to the same subject matter. I surmise that that thread won't be closed until it has gone several months without receiving a new response message.

@jeorj_euler 

... thread won't be closed until it has gone several months without receiving a new response

- - -

Then Everyone will be Happy Happy Happy with the New View 😃😃😃

or may not and just gave up 🤢🤢🤢

.

The last redesign? In 2010? That may have been a thing on the old message boards native to IMDb·Com, but it is not the way this forum on Sprinklr is managed. I'm not aware of a single public thread that was created by an IMDb employee and subsequently deleted or pulled from publication.

@jeorj_euler

??

@jeorj_euler

This gets confuzin ?? 😜

Maybe you can find something helpful

2010
http://web.archive.org/web/20100701000000*/http://www.imdb.com/boards

AUG 03 2010
Board: IMDb Information 
http://web.archive.org/web/20100803194537/http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000040/threads

    
Sep 20 2010
http://web.archive.org/web/20100920210241/http://www.imdb.com/boards/

Sep 09 2010
http://web.archive.org/web/20100909031553/http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000040/thread/170012668

IMDb redesign FAQ 
by bbsadmin
Fri Sep 3 2010
- - -
  
Aug 30 2010
http://web.archive.org/web/20100830010054/http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000040/thread/169469482

IMDb Testing Help Requested: Title and Name Page Redesign 
by bbsadmin
Tue Aug 24 2010 

.

As explained many times by Col Needham, every post on the old Contributors Help board (and the whole BBS to which it belonged) was doomed to public deletion (HTTP error 404), no matter what, due to the expiry mechanism. That isn't a problem on the forum hosted through Sprinklr, and likewise it wasn't a problem on the forum hosted through GetSatisfaction. To my knowledge, none of the announcement-type threads here (which can only be created by IMDb employees) are ever deleted. Some of them have been locked, though. I've been trying to explain to people that the IMDb company's present habits have been a little different from how they have historically been. Whilst a lot of undesirable consequences (like loss of functionality, e.g. RSS feeds) have been observed in the software upgrades taking place since late 2016, the IMDb company has also been clamping down on spam, fraud and abuse directed toward the website. On the next note, I cannot say for sure, but maybe some tyrannical employees got let go as well.

@Jack576 Thanks for the feedback and for your concern over IMDb’s future.  We are fully aware that IMDb is a service built by and built for entertainment fans. This should be clear in the Contributor Zone and specifically in the Contributor’s Charter.  Our aims remain as described on https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/general-information/what-is-imdb/G836CY29Z4SGNMK5 — to create the world’s largest collection of entertainment information.  We do this by making IMDb as accessible as possible across many devices and platforms on a global basis. 

For contributors we already offer a data driven view of titles which can be set by a registration preference as described here and we will continue to offer this view. This view was created in collaboration with our top contributors and focuses on the data. 

For professionals we offer IMDbPro where the information is optimised for the needs of entertainment industry professionals. 

For everyone else, our website and mobile apps are aimed at people like ourselves — entertainment fans. Both customer feedback which we have received and active research which we have undertaken showed that the majority of IMDb customers (and future customers) wanted a more consistent and visually appealing version of IMDb. UX design on the web and in apps has evolved significantly since IMDb’s last major web design refresh in 2010 and we were falling behind. It became clear that incremental changes to the existing interface were not going to be enough, especially when built upon an outdated technology (I have written more on this point elsewhere in this thread so I will refer you to more of the background at the end of this post). Movies and TV are a visual art-form and so trailers, videos and photos are important in the IMDb customer experience.  Consistency and simplicity are also important, especially as customers increasingly move across the web, mobile web and apps. We are also aware we need to make IMDb more accessible, extendible, and especially, more relevant globally as we reach the next 100 million customers (and beyond) in languages other than English.  None of these things were going to be practical with an 10+ year old design and outdated software. 

The easy path would have been to change nothing and watch IMDb slowly fall apart, however, we love the service we provide, we want it to continue to grow, and we feel we have a duty to ensure that all of the information which has been contributed over the last 30+ years not only remains accessible to current audiences, but also reaches new global audiences. As a top contributor myself, I love the fact that content I added to IMDb decades ago is available today to people in countries I have never visited, on devices I have never seen and in languages which I do not speak. 

We are genuinely sorry that not everyone likes the design and we appreciate that change is hard. We also cannot please everyone, but we already offer a separate data centric view for those customers who do not like the extra focus on visuals in the new design.

All designs are works-in-progress, but the new pages tested well with customers and meet the aims we set out to achieve today. The pages also work well for both new / casual customers and expert customers alike.  For the former, the layout is clean and clear — such customers can move through the page and discover all of the content in well labelled sections and explore more from each section. For the latter, the “All Topics” menu provides fast and convenient access to all of the subpages. Our tests show that expert users can reach everything faster on the new pages than the old.  If you have not taken the time to look at “All Topics” then you are missing out on the power of the new page.  I probably use IMDb more than most people posting here — I have a 13,000+ rating history covering every movie I have seen since 1/1/1980 and over 400 public or private lists logging my full entertainment experience. I also use IMDb for every viewing decision. In addition to being IMDb’s biggest fan, it is also my career so I am on IMDb in one form or another almost constantly whether for pleasure or for work. I have been using the new pages since it was first possible to test them (staff only access) last October and in my experience they are a significant upgrade to the previous version. 

For reference, here are the earlier posts with more background if you want to take a look: 

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/introducing-updated-imdbcom-title-page-experience/60a40631c1307254c6cc1b0d?commentId=60abb5553258dd21c738c969

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/introducing-updated-imdbcom-title-page-experience/60a40631c1307254c6cc1b0d?commentId=60ae3aea1ab2ba106b0106c3&replyId=60b01b0d06d61711351c9b7c

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/introducing-updated-imdbcom-title-page-experience/60a40631c1307254c6cc1b0d?commentId=60af6b6f62e27a6596f9b1af&replyId=60b3d09306d61711351cf052

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/introducing-updated-imdbcom-title-page-experience/60a40631c1307254c6cc1b0d?commentId=60b8e0f8a4586b59556af969&replyId=60c4ec9500ea110e3983c69d

Hope this helps. 

@Col_Needham 

LOL 😄😄

Col, give us some signs if you write under arrrest. 

@Col_Needham There's so much wrong with your logic here. You say this change was user tested and approved... by who? Where are they? I don't see any of them here. I think those "users" were cherry picked by someone higher up and the whole process was heavily biased if you ask me. There was nothing outdated about the previous IMDB experience, it looked nice, it functioned nice, it was easy to follow and master, it was near perfect. You already have a flashy mobile version and an app to reel in the more casual users who uses mobile. IMDB is a database that is constantly changing and updating all the time, so you saying how IMDB will fall apart if you change nothing makes no sense at all. The website is always changing from its user contributions! Nothing you're saying is coming across as genuine, it's as if someone higher up is forcing you to make all these off putting defence points that make no sense. The overwhelming majority of the community have said they don't like the new design and you know this, so what else is there to say, honestly.

I think most if not all can agree with me when we say that we appreciate your passion and hard work over the years - many comments may seem counter to that, but the point that you make about how much time you spend on the site, contributing etc. I doubt is disputed by many. You've obviously done an incredible job.

Many including me are questioning the wording of consistency and simplicity - it's just not either. Do you mean consistency across devices or consistency with other sites? If you mean other sites, other than the other movie sites listed in the comments, what are you trying to be consistent with? Facebook, most news sites and the vast majority of others don't look like this. 

Again, it's not that it's been redesigned, it's the quality of the redesign that is the problem which is constantly commented on throughout this thread. I imagine even your positive feedback at the beginning of this process was not a resounding yes, but a yes for some elements but not others. No justification can be given for the combination of all of the items all put together (or inconsistently spaced apart) on one page. I'm sure there were some people that liked the circle profile pictures but not the barely collapsible ad on top. Some people may hate those but like the trailers. There's just no possible way that many of the testers loved all of it put together in this manner. New users or old.

Reference site - we have to be contributors in order to use this? Sounds like you have to have an account in order to do that which is unfortunate when you want to use the site but don't feel qualified (or have the drive) to add any relevant information. 

Other majorly successful sites are much more simplistic and useful. Wikipedia is obviously one of them as is baseball-reference.com. Scoff if you will, but there are 1 million unique users per month - not the 200 million or whatever you mentioned but baseball does not reach the entire world so click for click it's closer than you might think) For a sports fan it's just as easy to go down the rabbithole of stats, trades, history, teams, etc as it is on imdb. We know that for highlights, interviews, etc. you can go to mlb.com, espn and others. Not everyone wants "everything in one place" since it can get overwhelming and when you aren't looking for highlights and just want to know who the Padres traded to get Tatis, you don't have to scroll by, switch pages, etc. just to get that info quickly. If I want to see Ohtani's latest achievement I can go to mlb, the Angels web site or other sources.

The all topics button you mention - you have to click that for EVERY movie you go to, so that's not at all convenient. These "expert users" must have been tested after happy hour on a Friday night. clicking from movie to movie and easily scrolling down is much simpler than having to hit all topics every time so I don't see how that is in any way an improvement. 

Thank you for responding above (and hopefully reading this one) comment I know this is a long response but as well-worded as your comment was, it did not address a lot of the problems - not why it was redesigned but why it was redesigned in this slower (I'm guessing your test subjects had quite the high speed connection available to them), convoluted manner. Ok I'm done, I could probably go on for a couple more wordy pages.

Oh and these discussions would be much better had over a couple of pints so next time you're in the states...

@cougs Man, I wish there was an "applause" button...

As to this:

Reference site - we have to be contributors in order to use this? Sounds like you have to have an account in order to do that which is unfortunate when you want to use the site but don't feel qualified (or have the drive) to add any relevant information. 

You can have an account without being a contributor. I got myself an account in the early 2010s primarily to use the message boards and now use it mainly for ratings/reviews. Besides those, I've never contributed any information (besides correcting a couple of incorrect goofs/trivia/etc.). It should be noted, however, that the reference view isn't exactly perfect. A lot of things are in odd places and you have to scroll through the entire cast and crew. Despite this, it is still highly preferable to the new layout and far closer to what it was before.

@momur Thanks! Though I'd have to sign up on IMDb. :) 

You are definitely my wife (who, unsolicited, asked WTF happened to the imdb pages, they suck now.) and I. We look at trivia and probably most often the "that guy" and "that woman" that we can't remember their name or since my wife is a huge Golden Girls fan, proving the fact that George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino were on it.

As far as the home page, I can't remember the last time I accessed it - normally when I look up a movie, I leave the tab open so I can just search for the next one or right-click on something to open a new tab. Able to skip a step that way.

@Col_Needham

I can only guess that the "evolved" UX/UI design you are referring to is that modern trend which is considered anti-user, bad for the user and instead focused on making the site more complex to maneuver.  Also, when you say "UX design in web AND apps" it seems you clump those two together as if one approach works for both, even though we know that is not the case. You also say there is a data-centric view. That view is bad for the user as it doesn't have the contrast the old view had. Basically, you've left a big segment of your users, the ones who provided content for your site, with no workable option. The new site is not usable.  

All I can guess from these comments is that either 1) the UI/UX person or team you've hired is misguided and could have used help from a true expert who knows and understands real user needs, rather than misguided trends; or 2) you know the new site has bad usability but your goal is redirecting users to areas that you think will make you more money, even though you know this is bad UI. It might be good "marketing," but you must know this violates true UI/UX principles. 

You might be building the biggest, most complete database, but if you make it so difficult to access the entire project is ruined. The new IMDB is like creating the perfect cancer cure and then housing it on Pluto, where it is too difficult for anyone to use. 

@Col_Needham What you say here; "Movies and TV are a visual art-form and so trailers, videos and photos are important in the IMDb customer experience" is a fallacy. IMDB is (or was) for people who want to go deeper than the visual media they're visiting to research. If they want purely visual then they'll go to youtube or instagram.

There are other things in your reply above that I was going to address such as people wanting consistency across platforms (not true, most phone users won't go to a computer if they can do it on the phone) but I can see I'd be banging my head against a wall.

I wish you luck with the new IMDB as it is radically new and as far as I can see a gamble. Instead of continuing with what the silent majority liked about the site (a well laid-out resource) you're trying to compete with social media and that's going to be tough. They have established user bases who like them for what they are whereas I think a lot of your user base liked IMDB for what it was and will fall away. Maybe new users will compensate for that, it seems to be what you're relying on.

If I were in this field I know that I'd be creating a website now to fill the niche you've just vacated. Something like a cross between the old IMDB (but possibly a bit less desperately populist appearing) and Wikipedia (with completely separate 'views' for PC and mobile that play to the individual strengths of each platform).

I think that would be a winner and could make someone a lot of money. I guess you're bound by a non-compete clause with Amazon huh? Shame, you did well with IMDB when it was yours.

Cheers.

@Rekrul 

I usually just hit the End key to jump to the bottom of the page and scroll up.

😲

Well, now I feel like an utter moron for not having thought of that. That makes the reference view almost perfect!

Maybe I'm an outlier, but I don't use any of the fancy features of the site. I come here to look up titles and cast lists, see the credits for actors, read goofs and trivia, etc. In the reference view, all of that is easily accessible via the links on the right, no extra clicking required.

You're definitely not an outlier. I'm exactly the same and I personally don't know anyone who uses(/used) IMDb for anything other than what you do. I'm willing to bet a lot of people on this thread are the same. But who knows? Maybe in their userbase of 200 million people, we're all still outliers for actually using IMDb as, well, a database...

@Brandenburg3rdAgain 

Wondering where Del is now....

delmedia
Delmedia_II ?
Joined Mon Jul 5 2021
https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/users/60e3232ba80b9421431eb2a5

404 - The page could not be found - July 10 2021 
   
delmedia_III 
Joined Sat Jul 10 2021
https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/users/60ea01d955bc2d278b536bf0

404 - The page could not be found - Sun Jul 11 2021
- - -

Search for delmedia_IV  ? ?

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/leaderboard?dateFrom=ANY&page=1&q=del&sortKey=JOINED_AT&sortOrder=DESC

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See more

https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdbcom/introducing-updated-imdbcom-title-page-experience/60a40631c1307254c6cc1b0d?commentId=60e5be6e2dab6b6c78f3be3a&replyId=60ea2a4f9aff7e72919760eb

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@Brandenburg3rdAgain 

WE need to move all this to a new and different thread 😜

You go first... 😁

.

@Brandenburg3rdAgain 

Have to go WayBack...

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.imdb.com/boards/

Message Boards : 

http://web.archive.org/web/20170123090745/http://www.imdb.com/boards/

Boards Closure FAQ by Col Needham Wed Feb 8 2017 http://web.archive.org/web/20170219202927/http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000001/thread/265872671

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@Chris_Park

The Colonel likes it. And the aggressive marketing and unskilled UI/UX teams  responsible for this disaster must like it, or at least pretend they do. 

Three, four or five people have stated that they like the new design and see it as an improvement over the previous.

@jeorj_euler 

Of course, just like the dung beetle that prefers to eat feces whereas most other species of beetles prefer to eat plants and fruits.

At least feces can be gotten rid of, even if by devouring. Haha.

@jeorj_euler 

Poll Suggestion: Gender-Bender Movies
https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/imdb-poll/poll-suggestion-genderbender-movies/60dbc0778b1b3f7a4bf512ab

ACT_1
2 hours ago
? ?
May not be what your are looking for 😆
Pink Flamingos (1972)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069089/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069089/reference

Trivia   (added  here for jeorj_euler)
The dog feces in the infamous final scene are real. 
According to director John Waters, 
the dog was fed steak for three days beforehand.
Divine's reaction to eating it was real.

After eating the dog feces, 
Divine called a hospital emergency hot line the night 
after filming the scene pretending to be a mother 
asking that her child ate dog feces, 
they told her the worst thing that could happen 
was the boy might get white worms.  

Divine
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001145/

.

@stefano_stefano For me, almost the same. So far, the Rate button takes seconds to load. In other words, it's slower than in the previous versions. And that's bad enough. And I'd say the same with the Watchlist button.

@stefano_stefano

You are not the only one experiencing slower issues with page loading.

Several others, including myself are experiencing delays in the loading and displaying of icons, images, menus, inputs, etc. 

The new catastrophic design is not the only negative aspect about it since IMDB staff and employees can argue that it is subjective, regardless that 99.9 percent of the comments here and everywhere else have been negative, but what they can't defend or argue against is the fact that the slower behavior of this new design has reduced overall functionality.

OK, since my problem is completely ignored and new page is partly unusable I will move away - after nearly 20 years of this platform...

@HHenning 
Joined Thu, Jul 8, 2021

This you ? ?

H-Henning
IMDb member since April 2005
https://www.imdb.com/user/ur5200530/

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@ACT_1

@HHenning Sorry for the delayed reply.  As noted earlier in this thread, check-in with comments is not supported at the moment.

You can still check-in without comments by adding the title directly to your check-in list from the list menu on each title page, however, check-in with comments is not yet supported.  The model implementation of lists at IMDb is on our iOS app and it does at least already support adding notes / comments to check-ins.  The website and Android app are currently behind on list support, but should eventually catch-up to iOS, however, we cannot commit to a specific launch date at this stage, sorry. 

Thank you for answer,

is there a way to open the website in old way with working check-in?

@HHenning No sorry, the software driving the old title pages is in the process of being retired. 

OK, I see in IOS also no chance to use this feature - am I searching on wrong place?

Check-in with comments (still) works in the Android app.

@HHenning  On the iOS app tap the “You” tab in the bottom right of any page; on the next page you will see “Lists” at the top — tap there to view your lists and open “Your Check-Ins.” You will see your check-ins there along with previous notes / comments. To add a new comment to any entry, tap the three dots “…” to the right of the entry and you will see this menu: 

tap “Add note” to add a comment. 

Hope this helps. 

Hello,

no, only:

Add to list

Rate Title

Check-In

Share

there.

Its from the german IOS Store.

@HHenning It’s the three dots to the right of the title while viewing the “Your Check-Ins” list, not on the title page itself.  

I am using IMDB on a Windows 10 PC. There is no three dots to the right. The three dots only exist on a mobile phone display, not on a PC.

@Aussiecubs Check-in seems only possible on mobiles (phones or tablets), and since the update only in the app with comments. In the browser only with adding to the list „check in“ without comments.

@HHenning Sorry, I missed your update on this.  Please can you let us know the device model, iOS version and IMDb app version which you are using?  

Here is my "Your Check-ins" page and I have highlighted the "..." on the right of the first title (in red) which you would tap to access the menu containing the "Add Note" option:

@Aussiecubs From the right panel of the reference view, you can click "User Ratings" in the "Opinion" section.

Hi pascal_baspeyras. Thank you so much for your tip on how to work around this problem. A great timesaver.

I am so disappointed in the new Web design, but at least your tip leaves me with a manageable option to stay using the much more efficient reference view.

However IMDB should simply fix this fault.

Cheers  pascal_baspeyras from Melbourne, Australia.

Glad I could help!

Me too I've switched to the reference view. The new design has all the data, except that you have to play Where's Waldo? to find it. It's not a matter of changing your habits, the real issue is that the new design has a much lower data density. You have to inspect the whole screen, from left to right, from top to bottom, in hope to find what you want. And the many different font sizes and colors make the task even harder. You end up scrolling many pages, each time concentrating very hard to not miss the data.

It's such a downgrade! Even if the IMDb had to change their background system to use more modern tools, it's always possible to display the data any way they want. There's the data and there's the way you display it, which is quite distinct. If they wanted, they could very easily have a page that looks exactly like before they changed their tools.

Very bad decision, IMDb. You don't make any ad revenue from the reference view you're forcing us to use...

@Mantacat Yes, filming locations (and significantly more content) is now available on title pages when viewed on a mobile device. You can find locations in the “Details” section — perhaps you are looking at a title which does not yet have any locations? Here is one which does -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9620292/  

Alternatively you can use the “All topics” menu in the upper right of the page; locations are in the “Details” menu under “Filming and production”

with the menu open: 

Hope this helps. 

@dan15i I feel exactly the same and many, many others do as well. They simply ignore complaints, or refer you some other link that "covers it".... So disappointed in IMDb.

@dan15i the best you can do is use the "references view" in your account settings, and bypass the home page - but that is not without it's own problems. It is however much, much better than than the horrible, god awful moblie UI they have shoved on us.