THE SUCKAGE OF MLB.COM
As an interaction designer, I subscribe to one great mantra: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
For the 2006 season, someone somewhere in the bowels of corporate MLB.com decided that they'd "improve" the user experience related to watching streaming video or listening to streaming audio. What have the improvements yielded?
Poop.
And you can quote me on that. What was fairly straightforward last year is now mind-bogglingly arcane. What, exactly, is the difference between "Multimedia Guide" and "MLB.TV: Live and On Demand?" And how do these differ from direct links to TV and radio on the home page? Why is the MLB.TV page 1/5th functionality and 4/5ths marketing? I'm a paying subscriber; I should never see this kind of marketing. That's poor site intelligence. In fact, for the money I spent on my season subscription, it's actually kind of insulting. Stop telling me to buy what I already have!
While we're on the subject of poop, let's talk about the new multimedia pop-up. Last year, if you clicked on a little TV, a pop-up window appeared with two regions, one on the left, one on the right. The one on the left contained the streaming video. That's all I really care about -- watching the frickin' game. And because it's all I care about, I couldn't tell you what the right-hand region contained. Stuff. Things I never clicked on.
Now, in the new and improved video pop-up, they have a scoreboard (ok, that's useful, but a real waste if you're a chronic Gameday user like me) on the right side. Better yet, they have hooks into other video and audio. Conceptually, this is good. I like the idea of flipping channels from within the pop-up instead of having to use the parent window to refresh the pop-up with a different game. But get this -- the channel-flipper doesn't work! You can click until you're blue in the face and, through some formula privvy apparently only to MLB.com engineers, you either get what you clicked for -- or you don't. No errors, no blackout messages, just a black screen with the word "Ready" at the bottom. Ready for what? My streaming-video rage?
The new design is busy, it's precious, it stinks. Like poop.
Footnote: I don't love baseball so much that I'll throw $80 into a lemon (MLB.com). I've written to their customer support people and expect a resolution, or I want my money back.
For the 2006 season, someone somewhere in the bowels of corporate MLB.com decided that they'd "improve" the user experience related to watching streaming video or listening to streaming audio. What have the improvements yielded?
Poop.
And you can quote me on that. What was fairly straightforward last year is now mind-bogglingly arcane. What, exactly, is the difference between "Multimedia Guide" and "MLB.TV: Live and On Demand?" And how do these differ from direct links to TV and radio on the home page? Why is the MLB.TV page 1/5th functionality and 4/5ths marketing? I'm a paying subscriber; I should never see this kind of marketing. That's poor site intelligence. In fact, for the money I spent on my season subscription, it's actually kind of insulting. Stop telling me to buy what I already have!
While we're on the subject of poop, let's talk about the new multimedia pop-up. Last year, if you clicked on a little TV, a pop-up window appeared with two regions, one on the left, one on the right. The one on the left contained the streaming video. That's all I really care about -- watching the frickin' game. And because it's all I care about, I couldn't tell you what the right-hand region contained. Stuff. Things I never clicked on.
Now, in the new and improved video pop-up, they have a scoreboard (ok, that's useful, but a real waste if you're a chronic Gameday user like me) on the right side. Better yet, they have hooks into other video and audio. Conceptually, this is good. I like the idea of flipping channels from within the pop-up instead of having to use the parent window to refresh the pop-up with a different game. But get this -- the channel-flipper doesn't work! You can click until you're blue in the face and, through some formula privvy apparently only to MLB.com engineers, you either get what you clicked for -- or you don't. No errors, no blackout messages, just a black screen with the word "Ready" at the bottom. Ready for what? My streaming-video rage?
The new design is busy, it's precious, it stinks. Like poop.
Footnote: I don't love baseball so much that I'll throw $80 into a lemon (MLB.com). I've written to their customer support people and expect a resolution, or I want my money back.
posted by Andrew at
4:55 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Andy,I have read of a lot too many similar complaints from fans such as you and I think it`s a big shame.The company should do the right thing,and give a partial if not total refund to there unhappy subscribers.I keep my fingers crossed for all of you.Sincerely,-Bruce-
By
Anonymous, at 2:24 AM
Oh, man. I hadn't even gotten around yet to subscibing to MLB.tv to get my Royals games, and now I'm in full-on pause (if that makes any darned sense whatsoever).
What's worse is, the Royals showed their suckitivity so quickly this year, that's it's hard to justify spending the money on it, especially since they idiotically don't pro-rate the price of it until much later in the year to cover the games that us late folks will never have the opportunity to see.
Ah, balderdash.
By
Daniel, at 12:47 AM
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