It's been quite some time: IMDb.com desktop view is in real need of a presentational design upgrade.

@bderoes I had not, thank you! Looks like they're taking on a lot of the very gripes I was talking about and appears to be a big improvement.

Naturally, opening it up to public comment means the angry people are the loudest. Lots of "where's the thing?" comments where IMDb already said, "we're still working on the thing and it's coming." That's how early previews work, people.

I'm literally going through this experience right now with a major feature redesign on a very large private enterprise platform. Public comments are always taken with a grain of salt. The real objective information science is gathered in observed user testing sessions. Designs are tweaked and improved where things were missed and solidified where they succeed. I doubt that IMDb would be handling a redesign this large without an actual user testing plan. 

Bummer that it looks like the redesign only applies to the title page; but that's a pretty big, meaty page to update as a start and should inform all other page templates when they go to redesign those. 

In the case of IMDb, given its track record, the reaction would the same regardless of an early preview being provided, so how early previews work doesn't matter in this context. Several IMDb visitors absolutely detest the recent redesign of the IMDb home page. They genuinely prefer the newspaper style, and I'm with them.

Yeah, the home page is pretty awful, but it’s probably IMDb’s biggest moneymaker (prime real estate to sell movie ad promotion). I don’t fault them for doing that when they’re still providing this all for free (generally speaking). When I go to IMDb, it’s 100% of the time to put something in the search field (or look up old searches or other aspects of my account). I just look right past whatever movie ad that needs to try and coerce me into watching (latest being WW84).