Thanks for asking, SmileyCat. I don't like the new design because it is "bland" and took away the best ways for Netflix customers to find movies they will like. The Top 10 lists are gone from the page, Friends ratings and reviews are gone, the Send a Note feature is gone. There are no links to movies that are related. If you look at Season 1 of a TV show there used to be links to all the other seasons. They were removed. Customers have been complaining and asking Netflix to return the features but NF is as blank on why they did it as the new movie pages. So after trying to talk with them some customers are now protesting the changes by removing their reviews and substituting a message similar to this:

"Dear reader, Until March 12th 2010 this was an actual real review. Because the new design that NetfIix has implemented for movie detail pages removed information about what our friends rated movies, as well as top 10 lists and the ability to send movie notes, I've decided to move my reviews elsewhere. I see no reason to supply NetfIix with free content when NetfIix does not support its users. If NetfIix decides to reverse its stance on this issue, I'll happily bring my reviews back, but until then, this note will take its place. I apologize for the inconvenience, dear reader, and hope you'll forgive this non-review."

For more info come to Movie Fans and join the Movement:
http://community.netflix.com/forum/topics/join-the-movement-post-a

Again, Smiley Cat - thanks for asking Netflix customers what we think of the new layout. That's a lot more than NF did.

Hi, Smileycat. Like aces, I am one of the "protesters" over the removal of functions.

Just on a design level, which has definitely taken a back seat in most discussions, I agree with you that the new "add to queue" button placement is odd, and awkward. It doesn't make sense to me either in terms of pure page layout -- doesn't "look pretty" where it is -- or functionality for the customer's "click button" impulse.

I'm also less than pleased with the aesthetics of the vast gray expanses (blaahhhh), and the harder-to-read information about movie casts. Columns of names are easier for me to read than a jumble.

These are things I might have brought up in discussions about the design if they were the only "innovations." As it is, I'm too caught up in the aggravation of losing other functionality to do anything but let it slide.

p.s. I don't find the gray expanses here at your site "blah," lest you get the wrong impression.

I'm another Netflix customer who's changed all his reviews. I agree with you on every point and would like to add one regarding design:
The manner in which the cast and genres are now listed is far less readable than the columns used before.

Sorry, don't mean to haunt you, SmileyCat. But I neglected to add that names are easier to CLICK in a column than in a jumble.

Just another sign that whoever they "polled" or used to beta-test the changes didn't really "use" the site.

The redesign is so bad that I originally thought I had a rendering problem in IE8 (wouldn't be the first time). When it rendered the same way in Firefox and Chrome, I was dismayed enough to wonder if I had a malware infection that was hijacking the site. I emailed my most active Netflix Friend to ask if the page rendered the same for him - i.e., really dorky looking with the most useful features missing. When he told me it was, and that this was actually a purposeful "upgrade" of the page by NF, I literally couldn't believe it at first - which is when I went to the NF blog on the topic and found out this is for real and have been avidly following the controversy and protests ever since.

In short, the new design is a horrifying step backwards. It's ugly, even somewhat depressing aesthetically. What others may experience as "streamlined" only draws attention to how much the feature set has been gutted. It has definetly ruined the experience of browsing the site for me. Netflix has been my home page for a long while, but I've spent very little time there the past week.

Thanks SmileyCat for providing this forum and asking for responses from NF users. This is the bitterest disappointing loss of Web-based fun for me since the original free Napster was forced off the air.

You can find another article about the user backlash here http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2010/03/unhappy-netflix-customers-using-netflix-movie-reviews-to-protest-friends-feature-removal.html

I am definitely not in love with the change for pretty much all the same reasons. Netflix is going backwards and no one can come up with a good reason why. The fact that they have been silent for two weeks is just making everything much much worse.

As a very loyal customer who has recruited three other users, I hope that Netflix answers our concerns soon.

Thanks for inviting input. I have only been a Netflix customer for just under two years, but immediately found and began using the extensive Friends features. In fact, I was enticed to leave Blockbuster's on-line service because of the Friends features and the Instant Watch capability. I am an extensive reviewer, having written over 350 in the short time I have been a member. I found the ability to share notes and to see my Friends' ratings right on the movie information page to be invaluable in helping me to find interesting films that I might have otherwise missed. I also used lists to organize films with common themes or actors into a sort of catalog. Accessing other people's lists, while not something I did frequently, was another source for exploration and discovery. All of that has gone away now with this latest "upgrade", and it deeply saddens me. I feel like the features that made Netflix unique and valuable have been removed. The new page design feels like an attempt to "prettify" the site, but has done little to improve its usefulness. I have been on the forefront of making my displeasure known to Netflix, but I despair of ever seeing them bring back the features that I came to depend on. Interaction with my friends has become much more difficult and if they do away with friends completely, which seems to be the direction they are heading, then I have no compelling reason to remain a loyal customer.

The new page layout is good visually.
Functionality of the new design however, leaves a lot to be desired. In the following areas things are now much more cumbersome, annoying, or downright undoable leaving me irritated and frustrated with the Netflix site. It also ignores context.

1.Where is the Leave a Note function? This is my preferred way to receive/send friends recommendations for titles - reverting to an email client is far less convenient and the message ends up where it not relevant - in my email account not in my Netflix account where I can act on the message where it makes most sense - on the Netflix site.

2. Where are my friends ratings if they've seen the movie?
I often only visit the movie description page to see if my friends have seen a movie and their rating. And the sense of discovery is now lost - Oh Bob's seen that movie, or all my friends but me have seen this movie I've never heard of. I am not going to follow all the clicks it now takes to get to my friends list of watched movies and then search for their rating.

3. If I've rated the movie - you now show me my rating in 2 locations - under the title image and in the right hand box with the date of the rating. This makes little sense when the At Home, Rating, Date info, Add/Watch buttons could all be handled under the image leaving the right hand box for the now missing friends/notes features.

4. Where are the top 10 lists and "people who enjoyed this also enjoyed" features? These helped me discover lots of great titles and even entire genres. My understanding also is that creating/adding to lists is also far more cumbersome now than before.

5. And my nomination for least useful "feature" on the friends and home page: the "Loved"/"Hated" boxes. You can't see WHICH of your friends loved or hated the title - which makes it useless for helping to evaluate the movie. THERE'S NO CONTEXT or granularity to make sense of that designation.

6. Finally, with the respect to titles that have many seasons or sequels. Previously the additional entries were listed in the left hand column making it easy to find and add them.

Now you have to search on the title to find them, and the results are often mixed up or the sequence is not clear. This change now makes what was an easy process extremely cumbersome.

I simply don't understand the removal of so many features that made Netflix unique, easy to use, and enhanced a participating users experience.

Facebook connect is not an adequate substitute for the friends features - again it's not in the context where it is most relevant and I prefer it - the Netflix site, as well as the fact not all Netflix users are on Facebook (shock, surprise), and finally it means more clicks and steps - it does not enhance functionality or the user experience. Additionally for people who use Facebook professionally (an ever growing number) they may not be comfortable pulling their queue in (I certainly won't ever do it).

At the very least Netflix should let people have these features as an "opt-in" to them as modules on a customization page ala Yahoo, iGoogle, netVibes etc.

The web team at Netflix should have taken a Persona oriented approach to site rather than a least common denominator for the masses one.

My main problem with the change is that I no longer see if my friends had seen the movie I'm looking at and given it a rating. That feature was most useful to me (and it's not in your screenshot). It was nice to go to a movie detail's page and see that three of my friends had already seen it and based on what I know about their tastes, I could take their ratings more seriously.

Netflix keeps emphasizing their random users' reviews over friends' reviews, but I could care less what people I don't know, whose tastes I don't understand, think about a particular movie. Most of the time the random reviews are written poorly and don't seem to be moderated.

I have just drastically reduced my plan through Netflix and will eventually cancel if they do not bring the Friends features back. This is ridiculous. The company does not seem to be interested in their subscriber's comments. Emails to customer service do not get returned and the staff on the phone all pretend that they know nothing about it. What used to be a fun web site is now extremely user-unfriendly. In order to rate a movie I have to log in twice on two different days. This may be the end of my Netflix relationship. Too bad.

The removal of the friends features has definitely ruined the Netflix experience for me. As others before me have said, I used to spend a hefty amount of time cruising the Netflix site looking at movie pages and determining whether a movie was worth renting based on friends ratings. I also have a habit of always going to Netflix and finding a movie to see if my friends have rated it, and if not sending them a movie note about it. Now, I don't have that capability. I just watched the most amazing documentary, "Life in the Undergrowth" and wanted to share this with my friends. I ended up sending my Netflix friends emails and asking them if they'd seen it and telling them if they had not, they must. Turns out, the majority of them HAD seen it and I wasted everyone's time.

In short, I find the change extremely frustrating and disappointing and what is worse, Netflix has refused to respond to any of our blog posts, nor have they responded to emails myself and many others have sent them directly. This is very surprising to me, as in my five years of Netflix membership I have experienced nothing but awesome customer service. What happened?

Netflix decided that joining Facebook was a better decision than maintaining the social networking features on their site.

I have 35 friends in Netflix. However, even though I have a facebook page and 213 friends on it, only 2 of those were actual Netflix friends. The other 33 friends I had on Netflix were people I have never met. I had carefully selected them throughout the years because we had similar taste in movies. So I relied on their ratings and recommendations much more than my real friends. In addition, since I did not know them, I did not mind if they could see the movies I had rented or how I had rated them. I cannot say the same for Facebook. I would NEVER post my movie ratings or renting history there for all to see. Not that I have anything to hide, but it would just make me uncomfortable, and like others said, it would not be very useful anyway.

I will really miss my Netflix friends. They were what made the Netflix experience fun and fulfilling.

What I will do today, is change my status on my Facebook page to "Very disappointed with Netflix" so that all my 213 real life friends and real life potential users of Netflix will see it and ask me what happened.

What Netflix does not realize is that the vocal minority that complains is only the tip of the iceberg of the actual population that is dissatisfied. And now we can complain with one click.

Good night and good luck

Sounds to me like a prime example of a company redesigning their site without understanding their customer. They've either not conducted any usability testing on their existing site or new design, or (more likely and rather obviously) not done it effectively.

I've not really visited the site too often, but I'd be really interested to know what their goals were in triggering the redesign.

Companies often make the mistake of not engaging properly with their customers, or develop high level marketing stereotypes of their customer based purely on their transactional behaviour. Yet there's a ton of extra information that is vital to good design, and comes from people's interactive behaviour.

A simple usability test with a handful of real customers would have been very simple and relatively low cost. It would have revealed what people value, and would have cited problems with the new design while it was at the wireframe stage, and therefore possible to change without any hassle.

The company has accordingly paid a much higher price in terms of potential damage to its reputation, loss of customers to its competitors, and no doubt loss of revenue.

Sounds to me like a prime example of a company redesigning their site without understanding their customer. They've either not conducted any usability testing on their existing site or new design, or (more likely and rather obviously) not done it effectively.

I've not really visited the site too often, but I'd be really interested to know what their goals were in triggering the redesign.

Companies often make the mistake of not engaging properly with their customers, or develop high level marketing stereotypes of their customer based purely on their transactional behaviour. Yet there's a ton of extra information that is vital to good design, and comes from people's interactive behaviour.

A simple usability test with a handful of real customers would have been very simple and relatively low cost. It would have revealed what people value, and would have cited problems with the new design while it was at the wireframe stage, and therefore possible to change without any hassle.

The company has accordingly paid a much higher price in terms of potential damage to its reputation, loss of customers to its competitors, and no doubt loss of revenue.

Strange, why remove social features? Probably a mistake.

There will always be people that get upset with change, whether it is good or bad. You just have to figure out a way to get past all the complainers to the people who have legitimate concerns....

Going backwards on user interface on a popular and lucrative website is a bad mistake. Hope they realize this soon.