Netflix starts the largest revision of its TV interface in twelve years. The new homepage offers a tidy look, responsive recommendations and integrated Openai-based search. Vertical videos in the tictok style also come to the mobile app.
Radical redesign of the Netflix interface
Netflix has distributed the most extensive revision of its homepage since 2013 in the coming weeks and months. The new user interface has been developed in order not only to present films and series better, but also to integrate newer offers such as live events and games more prominently and sensibly. After two years of design work and extensive tests, the platform is ready for what Netflix product manager Eunice Kim describes as a “huge jump forward”.
The new surface, called “Eclipse” internally, shows fewer titles at once, but offers more information about the individual content. When driving on a title with the cursor or the selection by remote control, it expands into a larger image with additional details such as awards or placements in the top 10 lists. After a few seconds, a preview video automatically starts – a feature that, according to internal data, increases the likelihood that users actually look at the content. For some, this large look should also be too much of a good thing, since it gives you more details, but also loses an overview. Netflix shows the new design of the homescreen in a short clip
AI-based search and responsive recommendations
As the New York Times reports, Netflix has developed one of the most important innovations in cooperation with Openaai: a AI-supported search function that understands inquiries in natural language. In the future, users can enter inquiries such as “I want something creepy, but not too creepy and also a bit funny, but not too strange” and receive relevant results, at least Netflix.
The recommendation algorithms were also fundamentally revised. The new system reacts to user behavior in real time. For example, if someone is looking for romantic comedies with certain actors, the homepage adapts immediately and indicates appropriate content. So far, it has been up to a day before the algorithm took such preferences into account.
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Mobile innovations and infrastructure updates
For the mobile app, Netflix plans the introduction of a vertical video feed in the tictok style. This function will display trailers and clips from Netflix content through which users can scroll. With a tip you can get directly to the full show or film. In addition to the visible changes, Netflix also improves its infrastructure. By using AI, the company optimizes how video files are transmitted via the Internet in order to adapt the streaming quality in real time and to optimally compress content even on slower networks.
These improvements should be helpful at live events such as the recent boxing match between Jake Paul Vs. Mike Tyson – where the infrastructure had to struggle. With over 300 million subscribers worldwide and a huge catalog of original content, Netflix has fundamentally changed the entertainment industry. Netflix-Co-CEO Greg Peters hopes that users will notice the difference over time: “These other experiences feel relatively static, maybe at some point they look a bit old and stuck.” Netflix shows how to use the new home page.
