At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, Hulu is showing off a redesigned user interface that will be coming to the streaming service in the near future, reports TechCrunch.
A main feature in the revamped interface will include a new Live TV guide designed for subscribers of Hulu's live TV service. The Live TV guide is meant to help Hulu subscribers find something to watch when they're not seeking out a specific show.
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According to TechCrunch, the new Live TV guide will be accessible through a lightning bolt icon in the main navigation bar. Once clicked, it will take users to an interface that resembles a cable-style TV guide with info on live TV that's currently airing.
In addition to the Live TV guide, Hulu will introduce a "Stop Suggesting" feature that lets you permanently remove shows you don't want to watch from your Hulu recommendations, and it will allow you to remove items from your Watch History.
Hulu also plans to implement a tool to allow you to manually mark shows as watched, which can be useful when you watch Hulu shows off of the Hulu service, and specific to the Winter Olympics, Hulu will add a dashboard for watching specific sports.
Hulu's planned interface changes come as the company hits a new milestone - 17 million subscribers. Hulu today announced that it closed its fiscal 2017 year with over 17 million subscribers across its subscription on demand and live TV plans in the United States, an increase of five million subscribers since 2016.
Hulu's new features will be introduced in the spring of 2018.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)Anything would be better than the current UI. Truly a frustrating experience.
You mean like the selection underline being ABOVE the text?Me: “Are there commercials”?
Live TV provider: “Yes”.
Me: “Not interested”.
You mean like the selection underline being ABOVE the text?
One of many problems. Usability and discoverability were at the bottom of their list, having it be pretty and look cool were at the top, along with spoon-feeding you the shows they want you to watch - I'm a bit tired of them continually listing shows on the front page that I actively detest with no way to remove them (sounds like they're finally addressing that - if the "remove recommendation" bit works, that'll be welcome).I like Hulu's content, but I really dislike the current version of the app (since their redesign - before, it was cluttered, but you could find things quickly, and see lots of choices at once, instead of just 3 at a time, with title text only, listed in all caps). Most of the time, I track what's new to watch with an Apple TV app called "WatchAid ('http://www.watchaid.tv')" (not a huge fan of Apple's "TV" app either - last I looked, it really wanted me to watch TV in the ways that they intended - WatchAid simply shows what's new for the shows I want and lets me click through, much more lightweight). So, I'm watching things on Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Netflix, but mostly not navigating their menus.