Google has updated the interface of its YouTube app for TVs to improve the comment reading experience.
YouTube was born as a platform to watch videos over the Internet, but always thinking about computers. It was normal, in 2005 the smartphone ecosystem had nothing to do with what exists right now. Little by little The massive experience of using this platform was transferred to mobile phonesalthough it was still used on PC.
What many did not expect was that little by little More and more televisions were the devices on which this service was used.. With the rise of SmartTVs, many people use this platform to watch videos, whether for children, musicals or other types. Of course, it seems that the experience was limited to reproduction.
Although the description of the videos or comments could be accessed, the interface did not seem to be well designed for this, by cutting part of the playback to show the column of text that opened to read the viewers’ contributions. Now YouTube has announced that it is changing the interface of its app on televisions to correct that.
(The perfect app to watch YouTube on a television with Android TV)
According to Joe Hines and Aishwarya Agarwal, two of those responsible for the platform, Google’s intention is to make the user experience of the service similar to that of mobilepreventing users from having the device in their hand to read comments or video descriptions while watching the content on the television.
To do this, the application interface has been modified on the big screen, making it cWhen the text area is opened the video will be reduced in size, displayed on the left side of the screen while the text appears on the right, which can be navigated with the remote control. This makes the video smaller, but it can be seen in full, not like before, when the text bar itself covered almost a third of the playback. This will also facilitate the purchasing process within the videos, something that many creators already have active on their profiles.
To arrive at this solution they have gone through several prototyping phases, in which they experimented with different modules, different transparencies for the elements or with the idea of ​​making the video less prominent when the comments were shown. After the tests, the solution seen in the video was chosen.
This new interface will appear in all YouTube applications for televisions, not just those for Android TV and Google TV in the coming days. As always, these types of deployments can take a while, so it may take longer for some users to have it available.
