In July of this year, Netflix announced new and improved Netflix profile pictures, the first overhaul of this feature for five years.
Admittedly, the new designs do look nice. Vibrant background colours and a wide array of characters from the many shows that users love.
They all look much better than the old, dull faces that used to be the default avatars of the past.
A definite improvement on those for sure.
But, I never used the default options because I connected my social media profile of choice (Facebook) to my profile allowing me to have my actual face as my profile. There can be no better visual indicator to me and my other Netflix users on who’s profile it is.
I see this omission as a massive step backwards.
They even state:
Profiles are key to creating a highly personalized Netflix experience.
As much as I love the character of Titus Andromedon from Kimmy Schmidt, he’s not me. And none are the 99+ options that I could use.
Nothing will be a better profile picture than my actual picture.
I managed to contact Netflix directly but they advised me that it’s a deprecated feature and there’s no plans to bring this back.
Surely this is a step backwards in their UX?
What possible UX research or user interview gave Netflix the reasoning to replace users’ photos with a completely unconnected character?
Does it annoy you too?
Contact Netflix and submit it as an actual feature request.