David Farnor | On 20, May 2014

Over half of UK viewers say the new BBC iPlayer is better, according to a study by the Beeb.

The updated version of the broadcaster’s flagship video on-demand platform became official this month, following broadly positive feedback from users. Indeed, the BBC asked almost 1,000 people (986 to be exact) to compare the old and new iPlayer – 627 people within the sample had previously used iPlayer – and 52 per cent said that it was better for finding what they were looking for. 66 per cent praised its overall look compared to the former iPlayer, which 62 per cent rated its layout as an improvement.

5 per cent, though, said that it was worse at helping to find what they were looking for. The same proportion said it was worse in terms of overall look, while 7 per cent said the layout had declined in quality.

On average, 58 per cent said BBC iPlayer 2.0 was better, 33 per cent said it was the same and 5 per cent said it was worse. (5 per cent said they didn’t know).

The results of the study were published in detail over at the BBC technology blog in response to viewer questions. Indeed, the Beeb are openly welcoming feedback from users to determine what changes they need to make to the streaming service and, even more impressively, responding to what people say – an approach that some video on-demand platforms (hello to NOW’s interface) could do with taking.

Changes that have been made as a result of the feedback is the ability to sort Categories of BBC programmes by recency, which was present in the old version but initially removed as part of the update.

“We are now looking at how best to support users to filter some of the larger, more diverse categories (e.g. just show crime dramas within the Drama & Soaps category,” writes Dan Taylor, Head of BBC iPlayer.

They are alsointroducing ‘A-Z’ and ‘Recent’ sort options “so you can either see a full alphabetical list or sort so that the most recent episodes are at the top of the list”.

“I appreciate there is little comfort in knowing other users are happy with the new iPlayer if you aren’t, which is why I am reading every comment on this blog post and every comment submitted via the online survey, to understand how we can improve the new iPlayer for the minority of users who feel it is worse than the old iPlayer,” added Taylor.

What do you think of the new BBC iPlayer?

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