Amazon Is Giving Prime Video’s User Interface a Much-Needed Redesign
For many Prime Video users, this will be like a breath of fresh air: Amazon is launching a significant overhaul to the streaming service’s interface, with a modern look and feel, dynamic visuals, a new live TV hub, improved search and more.
The upgrade, which will begin rolling out this week, is the streaming service’s most significant change in nearly a decade. The new design promises to make it easier to find and watch content on Prime Video. It also aims to address what Prime Video members have been frustrated with for years: being able to quickly and easily tell which programming is included as part of a subscription service — and which are available for purchase.
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The upgraded Prime Video user interface incorporates new visual cues to clearly indicate which videos are included for you (signified by a blue check-mark icon) and which are available to rent, buy or subscribe to (signified with a gold-colored, shopping-bag icon). And near the top of the Home screen within the My Subscriptions row, you can now access all videos included with your Prime membership — with only a single click.
“We certainly wanted customers to understand the breadth of content available to them, with a clear ingress and being able to know which titles cost extra,” said Helena Cerna, global director of product management for Prime Video.
Amazon has been developing the new UI for about 18 months. The new Prime Video interface is launching starting this week on connected TV devices like Fire TV, Roku devices, Apple TV 4K boxes and the Android app, and it will be deployed to all Prime Video customers worldwide throughout the summer. After that, Amazon will bring the new UI to Apple’s iOS devices and its website.
Prime Video’s new Live TV screen
The overall goal, according to Amazon, was to enhance the Prime Video UI to highlight the broad selection of content on the service and to make it easier for customers to find the content they love. “We wanted to make the experience more cinematic,” Cerna said.
The interface is less cluttered than the previous Prime Video UI. It features a simplified main navigation menu that, on connected-TV devices, has been relocated to the left-hand side of the screen. The app will launch with six primary pages: Home, Store, Find, Live TV, Free With Ads (pointing to content on Amazon’s Freevee) and My Stuff. Customers will also have sub-navigation options to more easily browse by content or offer type; for example, “Movies” or “TV shows” or “Sports” on Home and “Channels” or “Rent or Buy” on Store.
The new Prime Video app comes with new carousels that play video previews when you navigate to that part of the screen. The UI features a “Super Carousel” with larger, poster-style artwork, to let featured titles pop out.
Prime Video’s “Super Carousel”
The new Live TV page functions as a hub for streaming stations, including live sports and events, listed in a cable-like program guide showing everything that is currently on-air and coming up next. And Amazon is adding a new “Sports” sub-menu — just in time for Prime Video’s exclusive streaming of the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football” starting this fall. The sports section also will highlight content available with your Prime membership and through subscriptions such as Paramount+ or MLB.TV, and will let you follow content by league and individual teams.
Also, the new UI has a redesigned “Find” feature to make searching simpler. You now have the option to search for a specific title or explore different genres and collections. Search suggestions are shown live as you type, and you can easily filter results by genre or format (i.e., 4K UHD). Search results also carry over the new visual cues to indicate which videos are included for you (blue check-mark icon) and which require additional payment (the shopping-bag icon).
Prime Video’s My Subscriptions page
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