IMDB Should Return to the Old Name Page Design

Today IMDB debuted its redesign for Name Pages for actors, writers, filmmakers, and other crew members. To say that it is mess would be putting it lightly. The Name Page redesign is harder to navigate and it is also much less intuitive than the old Name Page Design was. It also happens to be aesthetically unappealing.

To wit, in the redesign there is a huge amount of empty space on the screen, in contrast to the old design which was tightly put together. Both the Photos section and the "Known for" section on the Name Page redesign are much too large. The items on the right sidebar are also much too large.  In fact, even the fonts used in the redesign are too large.

Of course, the right sidebar on IMDB's Name Page redesign has other problems besides the items on it being too large. It is missing some important information, such as Awards, Trivia, and so on. Now some of this information can be found by scrolling down on the page, but some (such as Awards) have apparently disappeared. With regards to the items that are included on the sidebar, I noticed that on the user lists there is no way to view all of the lists on which an individual may be included.

The Name Page redesign is harder to navigate in yet other ways as well. By default filmographies are sorted by year. I know many IMDB users, myself included, prefer to have the filmographies sorted by media (television, movies, et. al.). Now one can still view filmographies this way, but to do so one must use filters, which might not be obvious to everyone. Worse yet, IMDB does not save your filters, so if you visit another actor, director, producer, writer, or crew member's page you have to apply the filters all over again.

Perhaps the worst change made with the redesign is the way individual episodes of television shows in an actor or other crew member's filmography are handled. In the old Name Page design, the episodes on which a particular artist, be they an actor, director, writer, or whatever, worked were all listed under the particular television series. For instance, with my dearest Vanessa Marquez, every ER episode in which she appeared would be listed under ER. On the Name Page redesign there is merely a link reading how many episodes on which a crew member worked (in Vanessa's case with regards to ER, "27 episodes"). One has to click on this link to see the individual episodes, which are displayed in a pop up. This pop up is not particularly easy to navigate, with the episodes divided by season. Worse yet, for many it may not be easy to read, given it has a charcoal grey background.

IMDB claims that the Name Page redesign is meant to "make your IMDb experience easier and more enjoyable by providing better access to photos and videos, an upgraded view of an individual’s credits, and improved mobile navigation making it easier to view IMDb features on the go." Quite frankly, none of this is true. The redesign does not give better access to photos and videos than the old design. The view of an individuals' credits is a downgrade rather than an upgrade. As to the navigation, it would be horrible on a smart phone, let alone a computer. Worst of all, the redesign is, to put it bluntly, ugly and far from sleek or modern. A commentor on the IMDB community compared it to a combination of Windows 8 Metro and the redesign of Netflix from many years ago.

At any rate, given to the reaction on the IMDB community, IMDB users seem to be united in their hatred of the Name Page redesign. My suggestion to IMDB is that they revert to the old Name Page design immediately and fire anyone and everyone involved with the Name Page redesign. Yes, it is that bad.