The Worst UI

A few days into my holiday vacation I finally succumbed to the cold I had been holding at bay for the past couple of weeks. I spent a good deal of time on the couch with a fever and very little energy. I watched TV to pass most of this time - specifically the on-demand services of Netflix, Amazon, and Verizon Fios. It was of no surprise that after just finishing work on a major website redesign I was more attuned to the UI and UX of these services than usual. It was also of no surprise that the experience of using Netflix and Amazon was superior in every way to Fios. What is surprising is just how bad the cable box is in terms of interface and function. I can't think of a product used daily by most people that has a worse UI. The difference in the user experience between “over the top” services and those of the cable companies is huge and continues to get bigger. Netflix and Amazon are A/B testing every aspect of their interface to maximize video streams. The cable companies are clearly not (unless they are, and they are just incompetent when it comes to product design). Over the last week I experienced countless instances of poor user experience, as well as a couple of major defects that turned me off using their services even more than I already was. The worst issue was when the “resume” option didn’t actually resume the two and a half hour movie I was almost done watching, but instead restarted it. That combined with the fact that there is only a single fast forward speed meant I had to fast forward for almost 15 full minutes to catch up to where I left off. That happened twice since the pause option only holds a pause for about 5 minutes and then kicks you back out to the menu.

Content is still the driving force when it comes to competition between all of the video on-demand services, but I think that the user experience is a key aspect that most analyses underestimate. A common use-case for watching video (not just when you are convalescing on your couch) is to load up one of these products and browse around. Good recommendations, a functional search, a smart layout, and controls that work smoothly are going to be a major factor in the user’s decision of which service to load up in the first place.

Verizon Fios is now offering Redbox as an option through its set-top boxes, and in the UK Virgin is offering Netflix through theirs. That sounds like an amazing opportunity for both parties to run tests and track data, learn, and iterate on their products. I feel confident that Netflix and their ilk will do that, but for the cable companies it will probably wind up being another missed opportunity to improve their product.

Thanks Amazon!

Looks like Amazon is getting more aggressive with its Cloud Drive further confirming my original post on the subject (and saving me money!)

Hello,

Thanks for your prior purchase of the 200 GB Amazon Cloud Drive storage plan.  Beginning today, all paid Cloud Drive storage plans include unlimited space for MP3 and AAC (.m4a) music files at no extra charge for a limited time.  Learn more here:

http://www.amazon.com/mp3gettingstarted

Because your current plan now includes unlimited space for music, we're refunding the difference between the cost of your original Cloud Drive plan of 200 GB and the cost of a current 20 GB plan ($20), which is the least-expensive Cloud Drive plan that includes unlimited space for music. A refund of $180 will be issued to the card originally used for your Amazon Cloud Drive storage plan. Refunds are typically completed within 10 business days and will appear as a credit on your credit card statement.

We hope to see you again soon!

Sincerely,

The Amazon MP3 Team
http://www.amazon.com/mp3

Please note: this e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

Why I chose Amazon

This weekend I just finished uploading my music collection to my Amazon Cloud Drive. Not only did this take the better part of a month -- the collection eventually weighed in at 100GB -- but I also had to spend a few hours in iTunes making AAC versions of the songs that I had ripped from my old CD collection. (Amazon does not allow upload of the "Apple Lossless" format) Despite the recent news about Apple's forthcoming "iCloud" service, I'm confident that I made the right choice by going with Amazon.

I have always been a music lover, but like most people in their mid-thirties, the music I love most is what I was listening to in my late teens through my twenties. I still seek out new bands, but the core of my music collection is what I was listening to during the times of my life when I was still discovering who I was. The passion I had for going to live shows, reading music blogs like Pitchfork, and rifling through the bins at Other Music is not gone entirely, but it is greatly reduced as the priorities and pressures in my life have shifted. Five years ago I decided to rip my 1,000 or so CDs onto a hard drive, and then pack them up along with the CD player to store at my parent's house. Since then I've downloaded a lot more music from various sources (eMusic, iTunes, etc...), leaving an external hard drive the only place where my music collection exists in its entirety.

Every article I've read about Apple's "iCloud" touts that their service analyzes your music, mirrors it, and makes it available in the "iCloud" application. It eliminates the need to spend all the time uploading your music to anyone's cloud, and I can completely understand why this is a huge bonus for many people. I, however, am looking for not only a cloud-based player for my music collection, but a way to ensure that I will always have this music collection available to me forever. With all my music on Amazon's Cloud I now have enough redundancy between my cloud drive, my primary hard drive and my second hard drive (where I periodically do a backup of the primary) that I feel comfortable knowing I will always have access to the music that was an essential part of my life for so many years.

There are other reasons why I think my choice of Amazon will be proven right over time. Both Apple and Google are going to put out a cloud service that will be part of a larger strategy to drive customers to their own mobile operating systems. This means less across-the-board accessibility. Amazon already has an Android app for their service. And while Apple will never allow an Amazon Music Cloud App in their app store, Amazon recently tweaked their online player to work on an iOS device.

I think it's likely that at some point the idea of music ownership will go the way of physical media. Kids who are just a couple of years away from having a meaningful relationship with music may find that a Facebook music service powered by Spotify or a similar product may satisfy their needs. For someone my age that had a tangible music collection that was such an integral part of their own personal development, Amazon seems like the right choice.

Of course the true test will be if I ever decide it's safe to throw out the boxes of CDs the next time I'm visiting my parents...