Poster for UNWATCHED Films carry no indication of UNWATCHED status
Poster for WATCHED Films carry a GREEN CHECK in the upper right corner
Poster for UNWATCHED Series carry the NUMBER OF UNWATCHED EPISODES in the upper right
Poster for UNWATCHED Episodes carry no indication of UNWATCHED status
Poster for WATCHED Episodes carry a GREEN CHECK
A not so useful ‘improvement’. In what looks like a mistaken attempt to make status indication consistent with the method used for a series Episode, what has resulted is SIGNIFICANT VISUAL CLUTTER attached to the objects that are, generally, of less interest. In general, I would think, most would be interested in what has NOT BEEN WATCHED, and don’t need any attention directed to what has been watched.
So here is some unsolicited advice, you can thank me later:
Mark UNWATCHED Films with GREEN CHECK
Continue to mark Series, with unwatched episodes, with the Number of UNWATCHED Episodes (as is currently being done).
Mark UNWATCHED Episodes with GREEN CHECK, and stop marking WATCHED Episodes with GREEN CHECK
Were you all munching on cannabis edibles, when you deployed this mistaken scheme ?
Well, to be honest, the green tick looks rubbish as well - the icon does not use a transparent background so you end up with a green tick on a black box.
Been a fair few threads already on this dreadful switch in the design of played vrs unplayed status in the UX and don’t even get me started on the snot green tick colour.
To my knowledge plex have remained silent on the feedback but I’m hopeful as more folks experience this change it’ll have then rethink what they have done.
True but it isn’t even consistent across apps. PMS web interface uses the usual amber notification top right of the poster (also noting that the notification function is reversed as well - LOL).
IMO, Plex don’t do consistency well. It’s most likely a side effect of their squads and development organisation.
They’ll claims they are working to a common framework. I’m sure that’s true for some aspects but ANYHOW who uses multiple devices, like me for years, knows that roku, android and web are very different in many basic features.
One example, casts…
Roku only list show level cast, even under episodes.
Android lists guests under episodes.
Web doesn’t list any guest cast.
I could give many many more examples but it’s pointless.
You’re right, I think. I was aiming for consistently marking UNWATCHED, and leaving WATCHED objects clean. A GREEN CHECK for UNWATCHED, would be weird and confusing. I preferred the simple shaded triangle in the top right corner used previously. But whatever marking they select, reserve it for UNWATCHED.
And in another brilliant move, PLEX has disabled the facility that allows a message to be sent directly to the developer (Moussa) who announced the feature and its deployment. So it seems it may receive no attention at all.
Ah come on! If the change was a good one I’d be all for supporting it. This is a bad ugly change and has come on the back of other bad changes (removal of director info from movie title screens).
The change is not consistent with other Plex apps or the web interface.
The function is reverse to logic and historical usage.
The new ‘graphical format’ is a failure in terms of visual.
Edit - oh and one more, opposite to all other non-Plex media apps I use
Edit 2 - would appear that Plex are rolling this change out to all apps. With all the other things that need attention, why make unnecessary changes like this ?
Inconsistency across the clients drives me crazy and makes it harder to explain Plex to people. I am surprised the company is not united around a single technique for foundational stuff like marking watched content.
Would be interesting to learn how this design choice was made. I’m not aware of any outrage or uproar from the user community over the prior assumption that “unwatched” objects should be the target of distinguishing markings (previously a rather unobtrusive triangle ‘notch’ at the top right corner). It was almost the de-facto and common sense assumption. Who made the decision to change such a fundamental assumption, and why? The change and release was even noted as having no prior notification, and the minimal notification was flagged as ‘for posterity’. Just sad (and more than a little stupid).
It has been said directly from Plex staff and employees that the UI design as well as feature functionality will differ from client to client.
Unfortunately. It seems like they too have the Google itch to swap and replace something at whim despite all the marketing speak of saying they have done R&D on what UI elements work best. Funny how many major app platforms such as Google, Plex, and Spotify have gone through so many variations of their UI but something like a physical device such as a VCR, cassette player, record player, or boom box often had standard hardware and UI that’s lasted for decades. Plex suffers from change for the sake of unnecessary change.
