After what proved to be a weirdly long wait, Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service finally went global last week. Previously, it had only been available in a few countries (very few in Asia), but now you can watch it in Singapore, India, and 200 other countries worldwide – basically everywhere except China.
That’s great news for the citizens of the world, because Amazon has some really great content, including original shows like Transparent and The Man in the High Castle. Unfortunately, it means that the citizens of the world will now have to suffer through the disaster that is Amazon Prime Video’s user experience (UX).
Desktop doldrums
Since Netflix is the obvious comparison point (and one of Prime Video’s, ahem, prime competitors), let’s take a look at what Amazon offers for users accessing its service via a laptop or PC. Here’s what I personally see on Amazon (right), when compared to Netflix (left).
Netflix may start with a big ad for some new original show, but right there above the fold are the last five things I’ve watched, so I can pick up right where I left off. It’s super convenient; I just click on whichever show I feel like watching and it resumes immediately where I left it. I don’t have to remember which season it was; Netflix just remembers and starts in the appropriate place automatically. Total effort required to watch what I want? One click.
(And yeah, I watch Better Off Ted. It’s a funny show; don’t be put off by the terrible name).
Amazon’s UI is noticably worse. That top bar isn’t just my recent shows, it’s also random shows from my Watchlist. I’ve been watching The Man in the High Castle recently, and I can get to that one pretty quickly: mouse over the show image, wait for the popup, click the resume button. But my second-most-recent show is Mr. Robot, which for some reason only appears if I click over, past five or six shows from my Watchlist that I’ve never actually started. And The Sopranos, my third-most-recently-watched show, is even further away (two clicks, then mouseover, then click resume).
Amazon does give users the option to manually edit this bar, but to be frank, I’d rather it just be automated. Giving people quick access to the shows they’ve recently been watching just makes sense; I don’t want to have to constantly edit this bar as I finish old shows and start new ones to keep it convenient. Just give me direct links to the shows I’m actively watching; if I want to pick something new from my Watchlist, I’ll grab it from my Watchlist.
Speaking of the Watchlist, the way Amazon handles TV show seasons on it is very stupid. I’ve never understood why each season is listed separately in the first place, but the Watchlist page makes this even worse by not labeling the seasons in any way. Unless you’ve memorized the cover art for the season you want, you’re going to have to mouse over each season’s cover art in turn until you find the season you’re looking for.
This doesn’t matter much when it’s The Man in the High Castle and there are only two seasons, but there are six seasons of The Sopranos and they all have cover art that’s basically just a picture of Tony. They are listed in descending chronological order, but it’s a pain to have to count down to the season I’m looking for, and even more of a pain if I can’t remember which season I left off in, since there’s no indicator of that even in the mouse over popup.
What season of Six Feet Under is that? What seasons of the Sopranos are those? Unless you’ve memorized the cover art, you have to mouse over each season to check until you find the right one.
Crouching streaming service, hidden Android app
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