Yes, I guess so, but why tell us it would be “temporary” if they are actually curios about what we think? What does it matter what we think if they don’t plan to keep it in the first place? These two things are contradictory in my mind.
I wouldn’t mind if they either admit, that they thought it would be a good looking front page, or ask for testers to state their opinion. But on a separated system please.
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I would agree that the front page isn’t as helpful as it probably thinks it is. The recommendations they list for me are all dramas I’ve seen (like…a long time ago!) or really, genuinely stuff I have no interest in. Maybe they just need to tweak their algorithm for that.
I don’t mind the boxes, personally. I like big pictures and fewer words. It seems like they’re going for a “Hulu” look.
It’s really not that awful, but I would like my watch history up at the top first, and then maybe my saved or favorites also readily available. Right now it feels like I’m being advertised to instead of welcomed.
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What I want out of the first page to load (whether on viki.com or mobile) are the newest eps for my followed dramas. And then my followed dramas. And then the list of new eps for all dramas. Followed by the Coming Soons.
The Featured Community Teams box has lots of wasted empty space. Some of it could be given over to the top volunteers.
I’m not interested in recommendations, what’s trending or collections.
I’m also not interested in that shifting drama banner thing that’s taking up half of the initial screen.
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Well said. The banner thing is decorative though and I don’t think they’ll get rid of it.
Let newcomers who are not logged in have “trending” or “recommendations”. For us, what you said is the most user-friendly.
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I have to say I like the “featured team” idea and the “top picks” for me finally show me something new, but it is still mixed with dramas I’m currently watching or working on anyway. It is true, that besides getting messages from the CM, following a drama doesn’t seem to have much effect. Would be nice to be informed about new episodes of those one follows ^^
But all in all, after the disaster, I see they are improving things, which is nice^^ please continue.
In my case,
- out of the 8 “top picks for you” are 6 I have already seen.
I wonder how viki comes up with that list. As I delete my watch history from time to time, I suppose it’s not possible for them to keep track of what I (and anybody else) have watched till now. It would be a huge database. But if they don’t keep track, then how do they know to recommend those dramas? Or they are just random?
(Again, the ones who do this best are Amazon. They remember my viewing history and purchasing history and what they recommend is always relevant to that.) - out of the 8 “top picks for you” the 2 are also in the “trending in your country” list.
- In the “begin your drama adventure”, one of the recommended dramas is also in the “top picks for you” list.
What I’d recommend is a feature in my account settings, allowing me to choose what I want the front page to have.
For instance I couldn’t care less about fan collections and viki collections, and I never, ever, ever, watch clips. So these three items would be immediately out.
Top: - New episodes on shows I’m following and or/watching
- Currently on air
- New shows starting this week
- Upcoming
- Recommended for me based on watching history. But this would have to be made differently. For instance, I should have a place to log what I’ve watched and don’t wish to appear before me anymore. Not the same as my watch history, which is strictly chronological, may have many different views for the same episode (because I’m moderating it or managing it or watching it a little at a time), or many episodes of each show, and can be deleted at any time. No, just a list of shows I can manually tick to exclude. Because I might have a show of which I’ve watched only one episode and I didn’t like at all: in that case I could tick it so it doesn’t appear on the recommended for me list.
They also might have an option to filter recommendations by country. For instance I never watch Taiwanese and Chinese dramas, neither Latin American telenovelas, so I don’t need them to appear in recommendations.
- The featured group. It leaves me and the viewer with a question in our heads. Why is this group featured? Was it chosen randomly, or because of some special feat in their performance? Is it because of more subtitles this week or what? It doesn’t say, so I have no reason to go look into it.
And I do miss the “Top contributors” list.
By the way, out of curiosity, I had a look on “I love you, man”, the bromance list viki made. Among the shows there was “Jungle Fish” (there was no bromance, just two classmates filming interviews and another two who were friends before but grew apart, but nothing really wow about those friendships), “Runway Cop” (no bromance at all there) and “She was Pretty”. What was the bromance in “She Was Pretty”?
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Yes, you are right there are still a lot of possibilities to improve the front page especially for long time viki users. Settings for hiding sections should be easy to implement. And I think a “watched already” and a “black list” shouldn’t be that complicated either. So I like your suggestions and they are also reasonable ^^ Although there is a lot they still could do I think they are working to improve again.
We can’t see if they put much work into background algorithms and architectural improvements or not.
I think the current algorithm to determine your “top picks” are based on actors whom you’ve seen recently in a drama and the genre, as well as dramas itself you recently watched. At least this makes sense for the selection I get.
Bromance in She was Pretty is considered to have been between Park Seo Joon’s and Choi Siwon’s character.
I have to say that despite Amazon having years worth of purchasing history, their recommendations are always way off from my interests or previous purchases.
Sigh.
the recommendations are still funny - usually dramas I CM and yeah I’m watching them as I edit. Or things I’ve seen a few times logged in. (shrug). Or things THEY want me to watch but I have zero interest in.
I have zero interest in the clips.
I also do not give a rat about what everybody else in USA is watching. I’ve never been the one to follow the herd.
As for collections? again, why bother. Viki’s or someone else’s. I’ll watch what I want to watch. I made 2 of my own, sure, to try the feature - but it’s not that interesting.
So what do I need from a front page? coming soon. Latest episodes. Coming soon, because i hope sooner or later something I CM will get there. Latest episodes - on the chance I have time to watch an episode of something.
And now…yeah okay. I still have almost no “volunteer” stuff on the front page I see. The top volunteers gizmo is gone on my view - again, no idea why, I get that stupid volunteer finder if I click on top volunteers.
The thing that does show up for some reason is the widget that honors an on air team. Right. So I guess until the Teams I work with are involved with on on air…we won’t be there, but whatever.
No idea why I get the on air team thing showing and not the top volunteers list - where I and others at least have a shot at showing up?
Still think the design isn’t very good - it’s 1999, clunky, like a bad pair of platform sneakers. No real practical use so far…and I suspect it’s much worse on mobile. What a pity - even Soompi seems to have a better cover page. I mean, it’s not necessary to be like netflix - DF went that way, by the way…but usable would be nice.
The little team widgets on the drama pages are kinda cute, I will say that. At least more of a prominent “there is a volunteer team” feel to that.
Anyway - it’s viki’s design, they will do as they wish, and as a fan and volunteer both, can’t say I find it usable really.
Noah Veil
Dear Viki,
we NEED top 20 (or more) volunteers for EACH language again to be able to find volunteers.
I’m really not that picky where it will be placed. I would even be willing to punch in a super secret changes-every-two-weeks password to get it.
Pretty please.
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I agree with you about the recommendation: at the moment it shows me only the channels which I have recently visited basically. However, I must tell you that recommendation systems in general are actually quite hard to implement and require lots of experience and investments, so I assume this feature will be implemented in a way that it’s actually useful during a long period of time.
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