Small changes, big impact: Netflix has revised the design of its iOS app. Users who are still familiar with the previous look will notice significantly more animations and a more personal approach through the app. According to Janum Trivedi, who led UI design at Netflix, the goal was for the design to feel “more fluid, pleasing and polished”.
Trivedi, who led Netflix’s 2022 redesign and has since moved to a software company on the east coast of the US, posts on Twitter detailing what exactly has changed in the Netflix app. The streaming provider determined acceptance for series and films in advance of publication using extensive AB tests and measurement methods. Individual users were able to see the new layout beforehand. The reactions to it and the interaction had an influence on the development.
Netflix for iOS: Significantly more animations
After opening the app, it is noticeable on the start page that the highlighted thumbnail now takes the movements of the smartphone into account and seems to move accordingly, as if on a higher level. This so-called parallax effect is new, as is the dynamic adjustment of the background color, which is based on this large teaser image. If the user scrolls down, the lighting situation changes smoothly towards a dark background.
There are also significant changes in the animations. Flying layout elements can be observed as soon as a user is called up in a multi-user configuration. These are flanked by haptic feedback from the device. The transitions when calling up films and series are also more animated, whereby the user can influence them and also interrupt the animation.
Animation engine for iOS developers
Perhaps interesting for iOS developers, last year Trivedi released an open-source animation engine for the Swift programming language that makes it easy to create such fluid, interruptible animations. Whether and to what extent this engine was also used in the Netflix app remains open.
In any case, the engine can be easily integrated into apps with UIKit, SwiftUI or AppKit without depending on other software libraries, writes Trivedi. The project called Wave, which was last updated three weeks ago, can be found on GitHub.
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