Netflix revamps its TV interface, and it looks a lot better

Netflix is going back to its roots with a revamped TV interface.

Yesterday, the streaming giant announced a brand-new look for those who use the service on a TV. It's officially launching today, but it will take Netflix some time to push the new user interface out to all compatible smart TVs, streaming boxes, cable boxes, gaming consoles, and everything else.

Netflix's aim with this redesign is for content to be easier to find and to help users get watching faster. It builds off the Netflix mentality of them wanting to improve the customer experience. Stephen Garcia, a Director of Product Innovation at Netflix, wrote in a blog post that the “new interface was based on rigorous research and testing around how we can make it easier to find titles on TVs.”

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Navigating Netflix on the TV can sometimes be a challenge compared to the mobile experience, where you can scroll and everything is a finger-tap away. Most remotes have just a few buttons for navigation, so it's inherently harder to move around the screen.

The main fix is a new sidebar on the left-hand side which lets one access Search, Home, Series, Movies, My List, and New. Netflix found that many users may not know the exact content they want to watch, but they do know whether it is a TV show or a movie. The sidebar is also where you'll switch profiles.

Furthermore, it's much easier to access the content you’ve added to "My List," a section that can sometimes be hard to find since Netflix often moves categories around the UI on devices like the Amazon Fire TV. By giving it a permanent place in the navigation, users should be able to quickly find the content they've already saved without having to through rows and rows of genres.

Overall, the updated interface seems sleeker and easier to navigate. Netflix is starting to roll out the new look globally, and Garcia concludes the post with a tantalizing hint of more features in the works: "This new design is one of many improvements we will be rolling out over the coming months."