Develop for the better - The new Netflix App swiping left and right experience

Netflix, a company known for innovation, creativity, and user experience.

Their recommendation system has been developed in a co-creational way using crowdsourcing in order to match best user experience. This competitional approach even made it into a Harward Business Review. This, as an example of user centricity and focus on the client.

And now, with the newest release of the Netflix App on the Apple TV I am back in stone age when it comes to swiping through these recommendations. - Why? What happened?

The entire user interface is built to scroll left and right for selection within one of my automatically identified favourite categories. And to scroll up and down for selection of respective categories.

And now, this "home", "search", ... menu bar has been moved to the very left and pops up every time I want to swipe left in order to go back while scrolling.

Going back, since the invention of computer terminals and the back space key, probably the most widely used function. The functionality of reflection, of reassessment, and of reconsideration.

I am wondering, what would happen to usage statistics, if you would take this "going back" feature away from the user experience.

So, Netflix in a way did, and probably knows these figures.

What I do not understand is, what designers expect me now to do? - Why has this been implemented?

Do they expect me not to reconsider any more? 

Meaning, always move forward, don't look back, think only about what is coming and do not reflect what you have experienced a fraction of a second ago.

Do they want me to not remember the order of my favourites in "My List"?

Why doing it this way then? Would this not be easier with just randomly sort and resort those lists in the same way grocery stores work against our consumer habits by changing the place of items in the shelfs from time to time?

Do they want me to quit from Netflix on Apple TV? 

If I get annoyed by non intuitive behaviour of the user interface, I will spend less time on the app, I will get stressed, and - since Netflix is rather part of recreational phases of my life - I will not turn back.

This can not be the goal!

So, what were they thinking?

Do they want to teach me to think prior to scrolling?

Slow down, decelerate, relax, ... If so, it does not work!

Now, how was the situation before deployment of respective change a couple of weeks ago.

Same, issue hit the end user actually while scrolling up and down in a way. Just, that the "home", "search", "settings", ... menu bar was seamlessly part of the rest of the experience. Integrated into the categories of favourites. And given the usage of respective functions, I am not sure why this was not a good solution.

I can understand that technically this was not the most logic way of doing it. But it worked.

Or was I just part of one subgroup of users who perceived this implementation as intuitive, while a majority of end users did not.

Is this the struggle with usability? - On one hand everything gest more granular and more personalised. On the other hand, when it comes to simplicity and reaching populations of users with simple implementations one needs to make tradeoffs in disfavour of certain populations.

Is this what is happening here? Is this what I am experiencing as a Netflix user on Apple TV? - Am I traded off against a statistical majority of other users?

Never mind. The current solution feels so odd that I can not imagine above scenario to be true. - But, who knows?

Changing Customer Habits

Recently introduced by Apple Inc. the new Mac OS X Lion confronts its endusers with a 180° change in the response of up/down scrolling direction using a mouse or a track pad.

For years, we got used to scrolling directions which, if we are honest, are counterintuitive. However, everybody got used to it and never thought about wether the functionality was implemented the right way around. 

Now, with the most recent introduction Apple Inc. wants us to change. - And they call the new mode "natural".

Wouldn't marketing experts tell us, that introducing usability concepts against customers habits was a bad idea?

The mouse scroll wheel was introduced 16 years ago. And nobody complained about the scrolling direction. Why should we change now?

A couple of days ago I upgraded to OS X Lion, struggling with the new scrolling direction. But, only three days later I find it intuitive and I am starting to struggle with my old PC mouse at my workplace.

Which way is the intuitive now? The one I was forced to for the last 16 years, or the one which I am getting used to against my habits in a couple of days only.

Back to my fundamental question. - Is it a good idea to change usability concepts endusers got used to for several years?

That the context on the screen was not following the users finger movements was never a question. Does it matter in the end?

Scrolling mouse wheels and swiping fingers over track pads in the end probably has no intuitive connection to moving context. It is a usability concept everybody has to learn.

And, the average user usually learns much quicker than one would think. Hence, changing some fundamentals in the usability concept is a hurdle to take in the very first moment, but it will become intuitive to each and every user very quickly.

Will it kill your business now, if you change something in the usability concept of your products even if your customers have been following another concept for several years and generations of your products?

How quickly can you change your habits?