Please....stop with the menu colors

[candcgregory]

So, this morning, the new menu went live, and the color scheme is terrible. Some of the new features are nice, like getting more information on the cast of a movie would be nice (if it wasn't freezing up). But why does Verizon feel the need to completely change everything? Can't you add features, and just leave everything else the same?

Dark gray with dark red, blue and what I can best describe as sea green. Ugly ugly ugly.

[joker211]

Can someone post the pictures of the new guide and colors or a link please

ty

[SinCara]

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@joker211 wrote:

Can someone post the pictures of the new guide and colors or a link please

ty

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Here you go

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r29568520-Guide-IMG-1.9.7

[triplee]

My guide just changed today and it doesn't look like that--it's much worse.  That's easy to see compared to what I have.  Navy blue,black & gray with a slim red line along the top of the box with the show that you're watching.  The guide on the link is much easier on the eyes that what's on my TV as of today.

[0100010]

For you guys who say the image on your TV doesn't look like the images posted, or it is hard to see, etc; have you considered adjusting your TVs picture settings?  Maybe reset your settings to default, or try a different mode - just to compare with what you have now?

[03bluecoupe]

I didn't see the posted image and I'm not going to crawl back through 7 screens to find it. My TV colors are just fine. The Guide colors WERE just fine until this crap.  ElizH summed things up really well on screen 6.

[IHateThis11]

This is beyond awful. Fios will lose customers due to an awful color scheme. I can't get past the painful colors to even examine the other features of the change.

[Neiled1]

These new colors for people with color sensitivity literally make me dizzy. They are horrendous and I wonder who ther brilliant person was who originally suggested them and the team that authorized them.

[Neiled1]

If I knew how to paste into this post I would show you the disgusting selection of colors the chose

[eric-h]

There are a couple things I've noticed in the last couple weeks that I do like about the new guide. The movie ratings, posters/pictures, and being able to left-arrow and access a specific channel's video on demand. It's also nice that after finally being able to turn off the banner adds at the bottom of the guide they've finally removed that space altogether.

To agree with many others though, actually using the new guide is terrible. The flat-looking discordant color scheme is difficult on the eyes, and it isn't so much the actual colors used but how the entire guide flows together in one big mess of info. Some specific things I hate, the larger line of currently selected programming isn't physically separated from the lines above and below it.

Other turns for the worse include the program listings all being square boxes now. If you're browsing the guide there isn't a quick, visual way to tell if the program just started or began in the previous half hour, etc. With the old guide there were rounded corners at the start time and end time and if you opened the guide and the left edge of the currently selected program had square corners you knew it was already airing from before the currently listed/shown time.

Over the last two years I think I've been through three dramatically different guides and while there are a couple small improvements in each version, every time these get pushed out I hate the overall exerpience and it ends up being a turn for the worse. If Verizon isn't doing extensive user testing and employing or contracting a professional UI team they need to be.

I asked some family members that visit every week or two and have DirecTV at their home if they noticed anything different about my FiOS TV service and they mentioned the exact same things I noticed without any prompting or guided questions. It seems pretty uniform that a great majority of people dislike the changes.

[TwoTankAmin]

Verizon should be ashamed to code asbeing news those 30 minute advertisements. You need a new disgusting color for those.

Please fire your graphic design dept and try hring people who actually have brains that work.

Is there any way at all I can change your idiotiic new color scheme? You are making the guide more stupid not better.

[buffaloman434]

I agree, this new menu is horrible.  I have better than perfect vision and I find my eyes straining to focus on the text due to the color and text contrasts.  They whole menu setup is not friendly to look at nor is it easy to use.  It is more difficult to determine what I'm looking at and to find what I want.  I am extremely unhappy with this menu setup.  Please go back to the old system.  I don't understand why there was the need to change just to change.  This menu is horrible and does not make me enjoy using the product at all.

[cgd160]

I agree, the colors are aweful and the squared border is even worse.

Please, give us the option of color scheme and font size if your going to constantly change things, it's getting really annoying.

Fix the Classic/Standard View and the Fixed/Flexible Focus options, they are not working.

Please (for the love of God), make the guide fit the screen, get rid of the search reminder (that little box with the B and magnifying glass on the left, (is this really necessary?)) or make it optional . There is way to much empty realestate on the sides, on my T.V. it is about 3 inches of blank space. This space could be used for the guide.

The only improvement made is we can now turn off the advert at the bottom, thanks.

[joker211]

Well looks like the NON DVR boxes NO longer have chapters feature.

[03bluecoupe]

We just got the new guide forced on us with no option to revert.   So... we should be able to back out of our contract then right? 😉  I mean they've changed what I signed up for with no way to revert to something you could actually see.  

They really need to get some real programmers and/or testers to work for them. Forcing a change like this on users with no way to revert to the prior version is just simply unacceptable. Maybe they use highschool students as their programmers.

Absolutely horrible. When this contract expires, we're gone. Oh, and as usual, they've made it brutally impossible to provide feedback.

[maried299]

I agree with all the others. The Guide, Menu and DVR screens are for reading, not like watching as show where you want colors. It would be like trying to read a book where the page is highlighted in various places with different bright colors. It is very hard on the eyes and is very frustrating to navigate. I like the concept of identifying movies, shows, news, etc. However, the bright colored backgrounds are horrible. There should be an icon for each category the same way "HD" shows are indicated. Also, if you check, Madame Secretary is highlighted in the News color like 60 Minutes before it. I just happened to catch this so I am sure there are others. I scan through a week at a time to set up recordings that I don't have set up as a series or change times for recordings when there is a conflict because I already have two scheduled. This is really going to be a problem now with the colors as it makes me dizzy. Although I didn't use play all I do agree with the others that have complained. Even if it is somewhere else, it is not convenient like it was before, nor was there any notification or instructions on how to use the new screens. A few years ago they had made a change to the Guide, etc. After many comments/complaints they did change a few things and made it better. There also was an option to choose how you wanted to view them. At least please give us an option to turn the colors off and bring back the play all feature the way it was. Like another commenter stated this reminds me of when Windows 8 came out and have a desktop. Everything looked pretty but it was just dumb for desktop use. The changes made to the Guide, etc. may look pretty but they are not practical for use. I want to be able to read and navigate through it easily without it bothering my eyes. Thank you.

[joker211]

I read that the new update included ROTTEN TOMATOE  information.  Where do you see that?  Is there a special button?

thanks

[triplee]

Another vote for hating the new guide format.  For the TV, you can only see 1&1/2 hours of upcoming showsnow, plus the aqua highlight is mysterious to say the least.  If you press OK on the aqua highlight, it's not on the channel you want, so what is the use of it?  And, why all the empty space on the left side instead of being able to see more of the upcoming programs?  Then, when you're actually in the channel line that you want to choose, it gets really tall but the channel name on the left is stiill in teeny weeny font.  So again--why is the "new, improved" channel guide less functional?  It definitely is the Microsoft mentality--every improvement makes it worse, uglier, and more difficult to use. I see the "TV Guide" icon on the top left--is Verizon actually paying for this?  More important--is this cost for this new form of harassment being passed n to the customers?  My bill went up a couple of dollars.  If it's because of this, then I'll be REALLY mad!  I thought people had to be smart and well-paid when they are on charge of big changes at big companies like Verizon and TV Guide.   I work for state government in human services so I'm used to people at the top being completely out of touch.  Good to know that we really aren't that much less effective than private industry.  

[m32]

The color scheme used is terrible.  The top display where the date is shouldn't interfere with the rest of the guide- it shuould look and be seperate.

The bar with the current channel distracts the eye rather then bring it in; it doesn't make it easier to see, but more difficult.  

And the colors you had were fine, they helped view the selections.  These new colors are trying to be, what-pastel?

they  look like they are trying to use cartoon colors, but cartoon colors do not hurt the senses like these colors.  they just don't seem professional.

[Turbo53]

The black background  with grey menu selections is terrible. Very hard to make out which item is selected unless you are right on top of the screen. At 61 maybe I'm not the target demographic, but this downgrade should be reversed. 

BTW I've spent my entire career in the IT industry and normally thrive on change but we also have a robust QA process before changes are released to the users.

That was obviously lacking here.

[03bluecoupe]

Can't agree more Turbo.  I was a software tester for IBM for 38 years. If we would have degraded our customers like this with no way to revert to the prior, working and usable version; I would have been fired in a heartbeat.   Providing some flexibility simply shows concern/respect for your customers. And then there are changes like this one.

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@Turbo53 wrote:

The black background  with grey menu selections is terrible. Very hard to make out which item is selected unless you are right on top of the screen. At 61 maybe I'm not the target demographic, but this downgrade should be reversed. 

BTW I've spent my entire career in the IT industry and normally thrive on change but we also have a robust QA process before changes are released to the users.

That was obviously lacking here.

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[frank2644]

I also was in the IT industry for about 25 years and I cannot believe how poorly Verizon seems to understand the user interface.

These recent changes are horrible; the colors are bad, the font size is too small, and more keystrokes have been added  to some DVR functions.

Seems that everytime the change the user interface they just make it worse. A year or two ago they made menu changes that were also pretty bad.and I guess they didn't learn their lesson.

In fact the whole Verizon organization seems badly organized and is riddled with inefficient systems. I recently made some equipment order changes and suffered several outages because they didn't handle these changes properly. They even sent me equipment that had been canceled about one-month prior that I had to return.

OTOH, whenever I have contact with their customer-facing personal I am impressed with them. So it seems like management is what is screwed up, not the employees.