On a rare occasion, I was watching a Hindi show on Prime Video. Hindi is my second language for which I don’t need subtitles.
I clicked on the subtitles setting and this is what I saw,
I was looking for an ‘Off’ button because I wanted to switch the setting off. It took me a good few seconds to scan the area and figure out what to do. In the end, I clicked on the ‘On’ button because after all clicking all the buttons somehow always works. The ‘On’ changed to ‘Off’.
Great! But what if we do this?
My observations:
- The toggle has been visually changed to a button keeping the interaction is same.
- A toggle is used when the action is going to have an immediate effect on the UI which in this case the subtitles appear or disappear in real time.
- Having only one button to click which changes On and Off, is a way to reduce the time spent in navigating to a second button.
- A regular user will click on >> 1. Subtitles >> 2. On/Off
- The focus state, by default, is the On/Off button when ‘Subtitles’ is clicked. This results in immediate action and result.
- The remote button used to click on 1. Subtitles and 2. On/Off is the same. So there is no need to move the finger and the eyes.
Image 2
- The user has to click on >> 1. Subtitles >> 2. The right arrow on the remote >> 3. Off
- This is 3 clicks
- The button used to click on Subtitles and the On/Off button is different from the one used to go right. So this is an additional cognitive load on the user since they have to look at the remote for the button and then at the screen to check if they have navigated correctly.
✨ What if we do this?
This uses the visual treatment of the toggle keeping the behaviour the same. In my opinion, this has the potential of removing the confusion I faced for a few seconds.
Conclusion: Prime Video has made the right decision in keeping one button for On/Off but it will help more if it looks like a toggle. 🥳
My noobness wrote this whole article because of a few seconds of confusion 😅
Leave a Reply