Hey Siri, can you help Apple TV+, please?
A lot must have been said since Apple TV+ has launched. I just moved to Ireland from Turkey and therefore I just got authorized to watch any content from it. As a huge fan of Asimov’s work, I was excited to watch the Foundation series.
However, this article won’t include my disappointments about the Foundation series but rather about the Apple TV+ experience. I watched Foundation from Apple TV+ on Macbook. So my comments will be solely focusing on the web experience. I can only hope they solved my problems in other mediums.
Let’s start…
As a user, I want to see which episode will be played with “Play Episode” button so that I won’t get confused.
When you land on a series page, it’s clear that someone wants you to play an episode. But no one has bothered to tell you which one. Am I supposed to understand it from the trailer played on the page? As Darth Vader said, we shouldn’t underestimate the Force but I guess there is a disturbance in that one.
Dear Apple TV+, please just write “Play Episode: 1” if I’m a first comer. Or if I’ve already started to watch the series, just write “Play Episode: X” where X is the next episodes’ number.
Moreover, I cannot see where I can choose the episode at the first look. I need to scroll to see the other episodes.
How many episodes do you think there are in Season 1 when you look at the screenshot above? I guess the majority will answer that with four. Because there is no sign of continuity for more episodes. You may be surprised but when I got that screenshot, 6 episodes were released in the 10 episode season.
As a new user, I want to have a sense that there are more episodes to watch so that I can browse the episodes.
Dear Apple TV+, please show 3.5 or 4.5 episodes on the Season slider. It’s a great trick to give that continuity feeling.
More importantly, as a returning user, I want to have a clue about the episode I’ve watched so that I can continue from where I left off.
Dear Apple TV+, this will be a short one. Just find a way to distinguish played episodes from others.
As you managed to browse in the episodes, just click one then you’ll open a new page: Episode…
I don’t know why they assumed that users would need an episode page but I’d prefer to start playing the episode right away. If one assumed they want to give more detail about the episode, let me prove them wrong quickly: There is not even a long episode description on this page. The episode description is as same as the ones we see in the previous page. That’s why it’s hard to understand why you have to click twice to play content.
Nevertheless, let’s click to “Play Episode” again to start watching.
Having Skip Recap and Skip Intro features made me feel cool until I realize there is no next episode button. I wouldn’t die if I cannot skip the recap but I’d definitely feel confused if I cannot play the next episode easily.
Again, it is a huge discrepancy in user experience.
When you finish watching an episode you are going back to the episode page. Wait what? It’s the page of the episode you just watched. So you need to go back again and do remember which was the last episode you watched, then add 1 to it and click that episode, then open its page and then start watching. Instead of clicking just one button, you have to go back and forth with 4 steps at least.
As an excited user, I want to continue watching the next episode so that I don’t get lost while trying to find it.
Dear Apple TV+, please prioritize adding that Next Episode/Play Next button immediately.
As a product manager myself, I can clearly understand that it’s hard to launch a product. One may easily mix the must-haves with the nice-to-haves, it is hard to keep your focus with all of the pressure coming around. During that times it’s important to take a breath and remember what the value was that your product is offering to the user. In my opinion, Apple TV+ offers video content, it should enable users to access that content as soon as possible. With the user stories above, we may conclude that it has some major flaws.
Here is a Apple TV+ user flow from my own experience:
Nevertheless, we cannot lose our hope as Apple TV+ users, it’s still in Apple we trust…
If you have any comments on Apple TV+ experience, please feel free to comment and share. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
