Good to Great Content, Interface Has *Problems* – Skillshare: Creativity Classes Review

I feel the other reviews have covered the ups and downs of Skillshare’s iOS app pretty well. What I wanted to provide some feedback on, since I can’t on the device itself, is the related Skillshare Apple TV app. I’m aware that this might not be top priority for the development team, or most users, but it’s high on my intended uses for the subscription. So I hope this can serve as both a warning for other potential users and a message to the higher-ups at the company that these issues might be worth reallocating some resources to resolve. As of today there are some big, big user interface issues with the tvOS version of the app. The first thing I noticed is that the category icons on the front page simply don’t load, the buttons are functional but there’s no indication (be it an image on the button or a label underneath it) what is what until the user has already selected a category. When browsing, video titles center under the video icons but they don’t scroll, fade out, or truncate themselves in any way. This leads to overlapping text pretty much throughout the Browse section of the app, making it difficult to read any title more than a couple of words long. Most importantly the app lacks any kind of search functionality whatsoever. Courses can be added through categories but there isn’t a field for text input at all. Furthermore, if the user adds a course through the mobile or web apps (which both have functional search capabilities) the only apparent way to get the list to refresh with the new additions is by double-clicking the “TV” button on the remote and swiping up to close the app completely then re-opening, a practice usually saved for the occasional crash. In its current state the tvOS app feels very unfinished. The content seems to be there and I’m a huge fan of the people who spend their time making videos to educate others getting paid to do so without contending with the wild and ever-changing standards of popular free video sharing sites. Right now though? The app needs a little more time in the oven, it’s just not quite baked.
Review by aliveonarrival on Skillshare: Creativity Classes.