shawolia agatha decisive
Novella Poinsett
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I've been a user of both Netflix and Prime Video for a few years now. Both are my go-to platforms for consumption of video content. YouTube is third on the list. I subscribed to cable TV last year, but it didn't take much time for me to become a cord cutter. After watching my daily habits closely, I realized that I wasn't getting any significant benefit out of paying an extra $60/month.
I've been thinking for some time now about how differently I consume video content on these two services. So, I thought of doing a deep dive into the critical parts of the user experience to see if that can help explain some of the difference.
Netflix has a small yet prominent search icon on the top right, which expands into a search box on clicking. The search box also provides hint text to show different ways you can use Netflix search: titles, people, genres.
On the other hand, accessing the Prime Video search for a first-time user is tricky. You can access Prime Video search in two ways: by selecting Prime Video from a big drop-down list on the left of search box or by clicking on hamburger menu on the top left and selecting Prime Video option from the navigation drawer that takes you to Prime Video homepage. On Prime Video homepage, the drop-down list automatically switches to Prime Video. There is no hint text in the search box, though.
The primary goal of the Search is to help you find/discover anything that matches your criteria as fast as possible without distractions along the way. Let's see how both Netflix and Prime Video compare against that goal by searching for "comedy" genre.
Search results are presented in a grid layout of same-size thumbnail images of videos. On the top of search results is a list of additional subcategories to help you narrow down your search quickly. Going back to the main category from any subcategory is slick - just click your mouse again in the search box, and the results change instantly. No need to hit the search button or type the text again.
If you find any of the thumbnails interesting, just hover your mouse over it, and it will expand in size to auto play trailer/small clip of the video. Overlaid over the video is more information about the movie - description, add to list, like/dislike, etc. - which fades away after a few seconds so that you can enjoy the clip without any distractions and decide if you want to watch the complete video or not.
The number of search results is another heuristic to look at while evaluating the efficacy of a search. There is as much an art to it as there is science: showing only a few items matching the search criteria leaves the user wanting for more whereas exhibiting too many will confuse and scare the user away.
I'd say that Netflix has done a decent job here. I see approx. 300 results (might still seem like too many options to pick from, but it's much better than Amazon Prime which we will come to later) in the comedy genre with the ability to narrow it down further using subcategories.
In conclusion, I'd say that blazing fast results, easy-to-see high-resolution landscape thumbnail images, grid layout to show more results on the screen, other suggested categories, and auto play of clips along with additional relevant information about the video - all come together to help you find something efficiently that you might enjoy watching.
Though, there are some areas where I'd love for Netflix to improve to help me make the decision even faster or make results more relevant. Right now, search results appear to be a bit random. Though, as an outsider, I'm not sure how Netflix prioritizes these results. But some of the features I'd love for Netflix to explore are:
As soon as I type "comedy" in the search box, Prime Video auto-suggests a list of categories, with background greyed out, which I can pick from. But, switching between categories isn't an option. The only way for those categories to reappear is either by typing the whole word again or retyping parts of the original word back in the search bar.
I don't like it. I wish I had the option of effortlessly moving between different categories the way I could do it on Netflix. One possible reason I think Amazon is sticking to this format is that's how people search on Amazon to shop for products. Introducing a new search paradigm on top an existing one might create cognitive friction while people buy on Amazon - Amazon's primary business. If that's actually the case, I wish Amazon could find a creative way to work around that constraint.
How search results are presented in Prime Video is even a bigger letdown. Mobile has a limited screen size and navigating and selecting each alphabet through Roku remote is excruciatingly painful. A laptop is the easiest way for me to search.
All the space on the right side seems like a waste of precious screen real estate. "Included with your Prime membership" text is redundant, "Add to Watchlist" and "Ratings" can be overlaid on the image itself, not sure about the importance of information on "Starring" and "Directed by" at this point in the user journey.
I don't get the rationale behind showing results in this format. Some of the decision making elements that help you choose a video - high-resolution images, a short and catchy descriptive text, a small clip/trailer of the video - are missing. Not sure why these elements aren't prioritized in the current list view.
There are filters on the left navigation to help you narrow down search results (talking about the relevancy of some of the filters is a blog post for another day), and if I use the most potent one - videos with 4+ stars ratings, that's still 20,000 videos. Amazon owns IMDB. I wish there were a way to filter based on IMDB ratings. Restricting my search to only 7+ IMDB rating would have narrowed down search results to a few hundred videos, maybe.
Shopping online vs. finding a video to watch online are two very very different behaviors. In the case of an online product purchase, a user may like to see as many options as possible and then use filters to narrow it down, maybe do comparison shopping on a few other websites, or save the product in cart or watch list, maybe talk to a few friends if they're undecided. But in the case of video a user wants to find and watch a video as soon as possible without having the patience to scan through thousands of results.
The biggest bone of contention between Amazon Prime and Netflix has been the size of the content library. Amazon Prime has a smaller library of available titles, but tends to offers more of the latest movies and TV shows for instant watching. Netflix, on the other hand only offers TV shows and movies that are over a year old (with the exception of Netflix's own productions), but has a much larger library of shows and movies than Amazon.
Amazon has invested in building the Prime Video library as the biggest any streaming service has to offer. With over 17,000 movies on Amazon compared with less than 4,000 movies on Netflix, it is not likely that Netflix will ever be able to catch up with the sheer size of the Amazon movie library.
On Jan 28, 2019, Streaming Observer reported that despite a shrinking movie library, Netflix continues to have more movies that are "Certified Fresh" by review site Rotten Tomatoes compared with Amazon Prime and HBO Now.
The only major device that does not support Amazon Video but does support Netflix is Chromecast. Netflix supports Chromecast from all its iOS and Android apps but Amazon Video does not. Netflix also has a native app for Apple TV but Amazon does not. Amazon Video apps on iOS do support streaming to Apple TV. So if you have an Apple TV you can stream Netflix without any other devices. But to use Amazon Video on Apple TV you will need an iPhone, iPad or iPod.
Netflix apps are available on many platforms, including Apple TV, iPad, Blu-ray players, TiVo, iOS and Android smartphones, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Additionally, Netflix runs on platforms such as Roku, Windows phone and Google's Chromecast.
Amazon allows download of videos for offline viewing. Until December 2016, Netflix did not allow this. In December 2016, Netflix began allowing downloads of a limited number of videos for offline viewing. In the beginning, only Netflix original series were allowed to be downloaded. Netflix has said it is working on making a majority of the content available on its platform available for download.
Closed caption compatibility is available for a number of Amazon Instant Video devices, including the Amazon.com website for PCs and Macs, the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD, the iPad, the iPhone, the PlayStation PS3 and PS4, the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, Roku, Wii, Google TV, and for Samsung and LG 2012 or later models.
Netflix is available in many countries, including the US, Canada, Mexico, South America, the UK, Ireland, and Nordic countries (excluding Iceland). The available content varies depending on the region.
Even though both services have similar-sized potential audience, Netflix accounts for a much larger share of time spent. In a report released in June 2016, networking company Sandvine estimated that Netflix accounts for 35.15% of prime-time Internet usage in North America, and Amazon Video accounts for 4.26%. The popularity of Amazon Video has been growing and it now eclipses both iTunes (2.91%) and Hulu (2.68%). YouTube comes in at 17.53% in the analysis.
The $99 yearly fee is charged after the 30-day trial period. Not every movie and TV series that is available to stream is included in the "free" annual membership. In addition to the content that is "Prime-eligible", Amazon also rents and sells other digital content (movies, music, books, TV series).
Amazon Prime appears to offer more cost savings, if it is acceptable to pay up front for one year. Prime membership further offers the free shipping, free Kindle content and more possible deals given all Amazon online shopping options. Netflix as well as Prime present attractive catalogs. However, the Netflix catalog can change quite frequently, and without notice, for movies and television series might be available one day and get pulled the next.
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