The watch's interface

Bugs
1

Hello guys,
Why did you changed the interface, it’s crazy.
The old interface was better, now the location for the videos is really tiny.
How can we have the normal interface again?

Thanks for the comprehension.

3 Likes
2

Yep,
I got the same problem and I want the old interface, at least in my watch2gether is bugged with the images of the people.

3

Yeah, I signed up just to complain about this. Who the hell moved the URL bar to the top and made the video player small and in the lower right corner? This is awful!!

2 Likes
4

Thanks a lot for the feedback! You can return back to the normal view by clicking on the small player view! The idea of the new interface is to provide more screen space for searching and working with playlists.

@kirian.serens Can you describe you issue with the “images of people”?

Florian

5

The Interface I think is a great Idea, Plus the sync issues are gone. Thanks florian!

6

The new interface is definitely a hot mess. The URL bar is moved away from the host selection and pre-selected videos? The chat closes by default when searching URLs but no extra choices are displayed to use the empty space? The only thing this change has done is make things more inconvenient and take even longer to get set up. An option to use the original interface would be much appreciated.

7

Agree’d its nothing but total hot trash and looks like they spent a whole 5 minutes of effort into randomly swapping them around after the cat walked all over it.

My favorite part is how the video becomes tiny while searching for something. I sure hope a revert will happen soon or i’ll be removing my +membership until a proper ui can be established.

1 Like
8

Wtf is small player view? I can’t find this option at all so it’s clearly well hidden, if you mean the small option under the cog along with quality options it does nothing (also bad place for it if so?).

This UI update is horrible, dunno who decided on it but it’s very very bad.

1 Like
9

Hey everyone. Thank you very much for providing feedback. As far as i can see the main thing you are criticizing is the small player while the search results are loaded. Let me explain this:

Watch2Gether is used on all kinds of devices from small mobile screens to 4k monitors. On smaller screens many users had difficulties to find and access the search field because it was hidden underneath the video, often bellow the fold of the page. Since finding and sharing content is an important part of the whole experience i moved the search field into the topbar next to the logo. This is the de-facto standard position for search fields as its always visible and accessible. In order to visually connect search field and search results, the results are moving up when they are loaded and a smaller version of the player is shown in the bottom right. When you click on the player or select a video from the search results, the normal view is restored.

I understand that this might be confusing when you are used to the old UI especially when you have a larger screen. This is the first version of this new approach. I’m very open to feedback and ideas and will make adjustments next week.

Florian

1 Like
11

Reminds me of what YouTube did with their interface. They ruined the desktop experiences to try to make thing easier for mobile viewers (even though they already have a mobile app and website!) I’m really getting sick of PC users getting screwed over in favor of tablets and smartphones. I’d suggest just making a standalone app or m.watch2gether.com and let desktop users have an interface that actually works for us.

The solution is to make something optional for users with small screens, not butcher the interface for larger screens and then force us to accept it.

1 Like
12

A little update. For those of you who don’t like the small player while searching: There is now an option called “Sticky Player” in the side bar menu which can be used to turn this off. The setting is stored in a cookie and is valid across all Watch2Gether rooms you visit.

1 Like
13

Came here to say the same thing. Maybe it’s because I was so comfortable with the original format, but as of now the changes are really unnecessary in my opinion. A nice suggestion would be the host having the ability to move the layout around at their own whim instead. I appreciate trying out new things, but for me this doesn’t seem like a step in the right direction. If it aint broke…

1 Like
14

of course not, This is a horrible interface and we loved the old one, now we have this cam streaming shit that maximizes your cam, I don’t want that shit on youtube for sure. if it ain’t broke don’t fix it but look where we’re at now eh? This guy is lucky that there isnt a better website because if there was, We’d already move to it, fix your shit man. fixing Sync issues, Garbage HTML5, etc. If anything gets fixed they break it again and we’re the ones to report it.

15

Hi Matthew, thanks once more for your feedback. Can you please provide details on “Sync issues” and “Garbage HTML5”? I’d like to learn more about these issues. - Florian

16

The sync issues were solved already by you, I was just venting on that, I just don’t like the new interface (the old one even though it was buggy sorta looked a little better) , but I do have a issue with the maximize feature, the maximize feature that goes on the video player is pretty unnecessary as you can already maximize cams by dragging the window, most of these new cosmetic changes like that are really unnecessary, we should keep the site for what it is right now except that feature, keep that maximizing feature only in the profile windows. We shouldn’t change everything because one person says this and that, we should see if it fits the site before we implement it, and one last thing… Can you add support to BitChute?

17

Thanks for clarifying this. The new feature is intended for people who use Watch2Gether for e-learning or presentations. This way a presenter/tutor can switch his/her cam to full screen for every user when needed. But i agree that this should not happen by accident. I will think of a way to place the “play button” in a different way. I have not heard of BitChute yet. Will have a look…

1 Like
18

I also do not understand the design decisions you are making. I‘d suggest the following prior release:

  • Let users decide if they want to turn on a feature (so-called Feature Toggles), i.e. with a beta participation option in their profile settings
  • Write proper backend and frontend tests (i.e. Mocha/Chai, Cucumber)
  • Use the feedback received from the feature participation and iterate until feedback is almost only positive (Design Thinking)
  • Copy from established apps that are commonly used and stick to end-device design guides because that‘s what most people are used to
  • Keep it clean and simple (that‘s what I dislike most currently)

Apart from that, I do like that you (I am unsure if you‘re alone or with multiple devs) interact a lot with the community here and are keeping a clean language, heads up and good job! Looking forward to some decent updates!

1 Like
19

Ok, now I can understand that, and I apologize from my gruffness sometimes but I appreciate that you listen to alot of feedback and try to discuss the site’s features from a different point of view and what it’s function is, and yeah I appreciate that the play button would have a different position because it’s better that way because people on w2g also use mobile in our chat room and it’s harder to avoid that button.

20

Yeah, except most established apps that are being used now, I’d sorta follow something from a 2011 perspective like how tinychat or chatam sorta used to be before they messed that up because most modern sites dont have a lot of pizazz or customization, this one still does.