YouTube - Wiggly Wobbly Blobs?

As you have probably seen, YouTube has changed the way it visualizes related videos. Instead of a nice list, that you can understand, they have created a bunch of blobs?

Now you have to move your mouse over each blob... wait for it to animate, and display a huge bunch of extra blobs - wait some more for them to align to each other... and then, perhaps, you are lucky to see a video that might look interesting (in most cases you will not be so lucky).

Needless to say, this kind of interaction is called "Mystery Meat Navigation" and is known to be the number one thing "YOU SHOULD NOT DO" in terms of "interaction design" and usability.

While there are 10 million ways to screw up your navigation, the best way to screw it up is to use Mystery Meat Navigation
- Vincent Flanders

It is so incredible inefficient. You spend 20 times as long time seeing 20 times less content. Sure there are a lot of blobs, but try mousing over many of them and you end up with this:

BTW: The worst part of this, besides being just generally awful, is that when you mouse over a large number of blobs, the time it takes increases exponentially. Try it - and watch you screen shake and wobble forever.

There is so many ways that this could be done better... Sure we all want to create Rich Media Experiences, but this is not it!

Comments

Jonathan - Dec. 20, 2007

While I agree that this pretty silly (although it's at least consistent with YouTube's generally bone-headed interaction design) I wouldn't go as far as saying that this sort of mystery meat is the number one thing you must never do. Context is very important to consider. People pick up (or think they pick up) significant information from a picture, however small or badly rendered. This may well be enough information for them. After all, the user already knows that the videos are related (in some way). Perhaps "navigation" in the sense you seem to be referring to, is not the point of this UI.

Would you, for example, also shout at Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar for http://wefeelfine.org/ (eg http://wefeelfine.org/common/movements/madness-full.jpg)?

Thomas Baekdal - Dec. 20, 2007

Jonathan, I think I will write an article about when to do and when not to use "explorative interfaces" (IMHO). There are a number of facters that come into play. One is what it is intended to do - another is what people expect to get out of it. Since the YouTube blobls replaced the previous "related list" people expect to be able to find related videos in a useful way. It does not have to be with a boring list, but it does have to be efficient (which it is not).

I have not seen "we feel fine" before - I must admit that at a first glance it seems to create more chaos than a good visual sensation. But I will have to take a much closer look at it before I can make any judgements :)

E.g. "Websites as Graphs" does not fall into the sphere of "Mystery Meat Navigation". The purpose and the visual output is very different - and it is highly usable.

Jonathan - Dec. 20, 2007

Jonathan Harris is also behind the UI design for etsy.com, which is well worth a look.

I think the problem with dividing interfaces into "exploratory" and "non-exploratory" is that you won't know which they really are until you see them in use by people. I'm not saying that the YouTube one is any good (I doubt it is) but that dismissing it out of hand on grounds of "efficiency" is dangerous, if not worryingly Nielsen-esque of you. IMO there is no, and there cannot be, any real "right" or "wrong" in design. There can only be better or worse solutions to problems. The trouble is, it's often very hard to know what the problem is to be solved.

Thomas Baekdal - Dec. 21, 2007

I will take a look :)

if not worryingly Nielsen-esque of you

he he - well, there are many aspects to efficiency. I don't mean that it has to be about work and all things serious. I am all for fancy visualizations - as long as it provides that visual stimulance up-front.

But, I will write an article about it - with a number of visual examples (after Christmas).