Netflix’s latest redesign aims to simplify your homepage

Netflix is testing a big homepage redesign on its TV app. The new look replaces the static tiles containing the shows and movies you want to watch with boxes that extend as soon as your remote lands on them.

It’s a change from how Netflix’s existing homepage works, which currently surfaces a title’s trailer and other information at the very top of its interface when you scroll over it. The new design, on the other hand, consolidates things — making all the information you’re looking for much more prominent on your screen.

Hover over a TV show or movie long enough, and Netflix will begin playing a short preview directly within the tile. Below the box, you’ll find all the information about a title, including its synopsis, the year it was released, the number of episodes, and its genre.

“We often see members doing gymnastics with their eyes as they’re scanning the home experience,” Pat Flemming, Netflix’s senior director of product, tells The Verge. “We really wanted members to have an easier time figuring out if a title is right for them.”

That’s not the only thing Netflix is changing about its look. The refresh gets rid of the menu that pops out from the left side of Netflix’s homepage and replaces it with a more streamlined selection of options at the top of your screen: search, home, shows, movies, and My Netflix. Thankfully, you won’t have to scroll to the very top of Netflix just to get to the new menu; Flemming says you can just press the back button on your remote.

The new menu pares down some of the options previously available in the left-side menu as well, including the “Categories,” “New & Popular,” and “My List” tabs. But it does add My Netflix, the tab Netflix first rolled on its mobile app last year, which offers content recommendations and quick access to titles you recently watched or saved. You can still access “Categories” from the search tab.

“Think of this as a first effort, our best initial swing, at what we think is a great new TV experience,” Flemming says. After comparing the new setup to Netflix’s existing app, the current setup already seems outdated to me — especially as Netflix dips into more types of content, like the live fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, the NFL games coming later this year, and the WWE’s Monday Night Raw.

The company will test the new homepage among a small group of subscribers using smart TVs and other streaming devices to start, but Flemming tells The Verge it could expand to more members if it works out. “If this goes well, which we are enthusiastic and hope that it will, then we would love to share this with most of the member base in the coming months and quarters.”