We love our Roku and all the various streaming services but is it just me or is the actual user graphical interface on most of them pretty crappy? Some are plain confusing, others are maddeningly laggy, none seem standardized in any way whatsoever.

Anyone else wish this could be better?

Just an FYI. I ran ROKU's for a while and then on a whim (and because it was free given I had a YouTube TV subscription) tried a Google Chromecast with Android TV dongle. It was significantly faster than my ROKU's, and after a bit, I actually grew to prefer its options and menu system. Only downside, the remote sucks when compared to my ROKU's.

PASig,

I found that by logging into some of those streaming channels on Roku, their interface improves dramatically.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Only downside, the remote sucks when compared to my ROKU's.

The remote sucks more than Roku? It must be really, really bad. I hate the remote & interface of our Roku. It's pitiful.

I have had many Roku devices over the years all the way back to be first one they ever released.
After getting an Amazon FireTV and being shown how slow and crappy the Roku interface is I am pretty much all Amazon FireTV.
I have 2 TVs with Amazon FireTV built in, 1 FireTV box on an old TV, a FireTV stick in the Suburban, and the FireTV box from 2015 in the Tundra.
Our main nice TV has an XBOX for streaming since it has the 4K BluRay player. It’s streaming interface is blah as well but I had an Amazon Fire on it but when I redid the stereo system in the Tundra and added screens in the rear I just pulled that FireTV since I could stream with the XBOX.
The sticks are not good for household streaming in my opinion. I prefer to hardwire them and they just don’t have enough umpff.

If you are a Prime Member that Amazon devices are really good.

I have Apple TV and it’s the same, pure junk.

It’s difficult to navigate, shows disappear and need to be researched, etc etc

It’s a real dog…

I believe Roku has an app that lets your phone be the remote.

You may want to give that a shot, maybe you'll like that UI better. I didn't try to navigate other streaming services that way, but it might help.

I’m not taking about the Roku interface which I actually like

I was talking about the actual user interface of Prime Video, Hulu etc

Yes, they suck. Pretty much universally.

I designed over 700 GUIs for touchpanels for my business over the years and I've found that most people don't seem to know how to make one that's easy to navigate and intuitive to use.

They also don't follow a basic rule of the GUI which is that the user doesn't have to drill down more than 2 levels for optimum ease of use.

Got involved as a contestant in a GUI contest in Orlando years ago and saw some real garbage people thought was good. The voters told them otherwise, though.

Check into a T-Vision dongle. Runs about $50 but has a great remote.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I’m not taking about the Roku interface which I actually like

I was talking about the actual user interface of Prime Video, Hulu etc

I don't disagree with you but how would you change it?

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I’m not taking about the Roku interface which I actually like

I was talking about the actual user interface of Prime Video, Hulu etc

And the interfaces for each app are different based upon your hardware.
For instance The Prime Video, Hulu, etc. apps are slightly different on Roku, compared to XBOX, and AmazonFire.

This came up in the thread about the show Midnight Mass what my interface showed compared to another members interface showed who was using a different device was quite different.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:


I don't disagree with you but how would you change it?

3 that come to mind:

1. Navigation: some of these are truly atrocious. Make it easy to move from section to section and search

2. Selection: some of these UI’s seem to go out of their way to make you guess what you’ve just selected or clicked on. Is it too hard to ask that it lights up or glows or SOMETHING???

3. Rewind: just saw this last night with watching Death On The Nile via Prime. Wanted to go back 20 seconds to rewatch something and the damn thing went back 3 minutes. WHY!?!?? Comcast actually does very well with their Xfinity boxes here.