"You guys took a good time to make it BAD!"(?)
The new Home and About tab:
The hyperlinks on the home page should be more dynamic and we as "owners" of our channel should be able to select which hyperlinks we want to be displayed there or not. Having it locked with "Home, About, Schedule, Videos, Chat" when not everyone makes use of all those (and even if they do, it's a fact that most viewers don't give a "f" for that many info in there) it's unnecessary.
What's the reason for "having" that Chat hyperlink there? I don't see the use for it - also it's important to notice the name "Chat" has (almost) no meaning... It took me like 1h (just by looking at the new interface) to guess what that chat was for... The new layout should be more intuitive for viewers and let's be honest - IT IS NOT. A question here: Will that "home layout" change when a streamer goes live? Because if not, how will viewers have (or know how to) access the live tab if there is none (or if it's named as "chat" and with no indication of what's going on on the channel)?
Having the old "about" as the home/landing page IS ALREADY enough. The new home would have much more sense if this platform was focused on hosting videos, like Vimeo/Youtube, which is not the case... IMHO, this new layout is there just to make all the investment in creating/paying for art from the panels being moved to a second plane and make it unseen, since viewers will not bother about reading panels when you are "live"... those information panels at the About tab should be in our Home since they have been our home for a long date... Honestly, remove the new "Home", rename "About" to "Home" and allow us to customize it deeper, giving us the power to add sections just like we have in the Videos tab. This has more sense and makes everything more intuitive for new viewers
Allowing the streamer to customize sections to be displayed here is A MUST. I don't want to show my last streams since they will simply be removed from there in about 15 days What will be in there IF I need to take a vacation bigger than 15 days - will the home page be empty? Also, I don't want Twitch to decide who I suggest displaying on my home based on any list (no matter which list is that) that I have already created. It feels more like "Twitch suggests these streamers" than "<streamer> suggests these streamers"
Ok, that's the viewers landing page but where is the streamer version of it? If there is one already, where is it?
The Schedule tab:
Unless there are plans to remove extensions from Twitch, having a schedule there is something worthless. Extensions like the one I use for my schedule already give me the control I need and it shows my streaming schedule on the viewer's zone time.
If the plans are to keep that schedule, give the streamers more freedom to create a general schedule instead of requiring fields that most streamers decide minutes before their stream session. Remember not all streamers have a tight schedule to the point they can decide what will be their stream about and which title will they use for it. MOST OF US (at least from what I could see) like to change/select contents and titles hours/minutes before going live... So how will be our viewers be notified if streamers change their minds about that? Title and category should not be required fields. I will use myself as an example: I like to be creative on my titles (and I know I'm not the only one). I create the title based in my mood, so how will I "pre-set" my stream title if I can't predict how will I be feeling on the day or time for that scheduled stream? The same concept goes for the category. Even streamers who are tied to a community may want to make a change for one day... What if this change is something that came out if mind like 20seconds before the scheduled stream?
Having the ability to enable or disable the schedule display tab is IMPORTANT. NOT all streamers are full-time streamers to the point to have a solid schedule...
Also, there is a BUG to report: when selecting "I'm not sure" as the duration of a stream, it's not possible to save the schedule. An error message is displayed saying that "Scheduled streams cannot be shorter than 30 seconds."
The Videos tab:
- There is no use to that IF we consider the new HOME page will keep as it is right now. So here it comes two considerations:
a) Either make Home and About a single page (removing about of course)
or
b) Make Home and Videos a single page and remove Videos.
NOTE: Having Home and About or Home and Videos is ambiguous because Home in this new layout is doing the same as Videos (with less power of customization) and About is doing what Home should be doing.
Chat tab:
- I already made my considerations about this at the beginning of this. Just create something more intuitive, either by renaming that "chat" to something that resembles the fact that THE STREAM TAB is now there and make it display when/if the streamer is live. Any WEBSITE design has to be intuitive for their users and THIS NEW LAYOUT (and its hyperlinks naming) is FAR from being intuitive.
The Top banner:
- Allowing the streamer to select what kind of contents will be displayed on that carousel is a MUST... What is the point of: a) Home showing past stream sessions; b) Videos showing past stream sessions; c) That carousel showing past stream sessions...
That's all "our channel" is about? Past stream sessions?
For real? 60 seconds to an intro/welcome? Is this any kind of joke that all the intro about myself which ARE ALREADY on the panels will have to be condensed into a 60secs video? If that layout will be kept that way, so make this intro video bigger than 60sec - it's a complete BS limiting the time someone has to introduce themselves... You have to consider that NOT EVERYONE is equal - you have streamers with mental health sickness and 60 seconds wouldn't be enough for people like those to even say "HI". THAT's my introduction video, I want to make it last as much as I take to introduce my self to ANYONE in real life.
Will that "purple" ugly background on the top of the page remain there? Is that a joke, right? What are the new dimensions for the image that will replace that thing? I feel the urge to replacing it ASAP.
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von_Schappler commented
And sorry for this big chunk of text - most people won't even read until the end just to post "no sense comments" in here, without a full understanding of this feedback.
Well, if this is the place for the feedback, I made it worthwhile pointing all that had in mind as considerations on this matter.