This is the feedback I sent Viki
1. Navigation to all episodes
I like the navigation to episodes but I don’t think it’s useful to have it on the video screen itself. It would be enough to have it on the page under it. While you’re watching an episode, all you really need is the next one.
2. Next episode button
The next episode button shouldn’t be on the left, near the pause button. It could be mistaken for the play button. Yes, I know, it has the little vertical line which signals “next”, but this is clear when there is pause, play, stop, forward, backwards, next and last (as in VLC player and physical CD players). If it’s the only one, near pause, the logical thing would be to think “play”. And if you have the navigation to all episodes on the right (please take it away completely!) then it makes sense to also have the “next” button there as well.
3. The "ten seconds before ten seconds after"
This is only useful if you want to write a timed comment, but that feature was already there and is still there. So it should appear only while you’re writing a comment. why crowd the toolbar? Okay, this is not really important, you may leave it if you think it’s useful for some people.
4. The timed comments
Two very thick and obnoxious lines (one for the username and one for the actual comment), they draw unwanted attention to themselves. Please make them with thinner characters and longer lines, just as they were before.
5. The show’s title on the upper left corner
This, if clicked, brings to you to the main page. This is distracting and useless on the player. It was perfectly alright to leave it on the page, under the video, as it was before. Moreover, since it’s on the top, it pushes the timed comments lower down, so they are really distracting as well - adding to their big size and the fact that the username is on one line and the comment on the other one. More things to take off from the video itself. The timed comments can be hidden, but the title cannot!
6. The opaque screen is gone - This is a good thing!
I am grateful that you removed that terrible opaque screen urging you to write reviews even if the show hadn’t ended.
7. Once the show has ended, no way of going back
If the countdown to the next episode has started, there are no visible tools to stop it and go to some other point back to rewatch it, or go back to the page, for instance to read the comments or whatever. There are no controls visible, nowhere to click. I frantically clicked everywhere on the screen, to no avail. You feel trapped and suffocating. The only way is to use your browser’s “back” button. Please fix that!
7. If you have finished the video, but want to go back there is no way at all.
There’s only the back arrow taking you to the show’s main page. (This will encourage people to write inappropriate comments on the main page instead of at the page they belong to)
And if, from the main page, you go again to the list of episodes modal page and click on the episode, you’ll automatically be taken again to the ending exactly where you were, with the countdown to the next episode. And, since the progression line isn’t showing, you can’t click on that to be taken to a previous part of the episode. I tried again and again, to no avail. So frustrating!
8. You’re trapped in the player
The most frustrating thing is that, even if it’s not fullscreen, you don’t have an option to see both the player window and the page around it . Actually the non-fullscreen is almost as fullscreen, you’re trapped in it.
Once you click on the episode, there’s no way to go back to the surrounding episode page, the comments, the clips and episodes list etc.
Suppose there’s a medical or action/war drama where they show gross stuff you don’t want to see, or a horror drama where they show something scary. And you want to scroll your browser window down a bit, to only show the subtitles but not the whole screen because you don’t want to see nightmares afterwards. Yes, you may laugh, but many of us are doing that.
Or maybe you’re reading some other thing on the page while the introduction credits are rolling, to then scroll up when the actual episode starts (think those interminable introduction credits on Chinese dramas). No way to do that now.
9. If you’re a subber, it takes longer to go to the subbing tools
To access the Subtitle Editor and the Segment Editor, you have to click on the video. There, you have to wait for a few seconds staring at a blurry screen until things show up. For volunteers who have to hop from Editor to episode to main page to Editor again to check stuff, it’s very frustrating.
Suggestion:
All the navigation tools should be outside the video player, on the page under it. While you’re watching, you’re only watching (and possibly commenting), you don’t do other stuff.
End verdict
All in all, I think you did one good thing (removing the screen at the end) and added a whole bunch of completely useless things which we never asked for (why am I surprised?). I personally don’t like it at all. I’d be extremely unhappy if you implemented it as it is right now.
POST SCRIPTUM:
Oh wait! The whole episode page with the comments is gone! I’m not able to access it from anywhere! That’s why they put all the controls in the video player itself. Now where are we going to discuss each episode, spoilers and all? This is terrible, terrible! I think I want to cry!
)
