A kids perspective on the Emby app (and my ideas for adjustments).

[RogerK 9]

I recently installed the Emby Android Mobile app on a 10 years old and  12 years old phones and a shared tablet. While trying to teach them how to use the app several issues came up that I thought I would share here.

The first image here of the home screen highlights the sections where issues where identified. Section 2 did not come from the kids but is a minor squick of mine that seemed to fit in with my suggestions later.

 

The first issue deals with items in sections 3 and 4, Shortly after I had given them a short tutorial and then left them to explore the app they came back and told me there must be something wrong with the setup because they kept getting sent to the settings screen and they figured that meant something wasn't right. After having them show me exactly what they meant I realized there was nothing wrong but their expectations and some confusing navigation indicators. They thought that the three dots after 'My Media' indicated that there was more content available. The same was true of the 'More' item in the bottom navigation bar. I explained that these were just different ways of getting to settings and the 10 yo commented that this must need lots of setup because they sure want you to do that a lot,  I would like to see the three dots removed and the 'More'  item renamed to 'Settings',

They also had several questions about navigation. The first was how come there was only  'Movies' in the bottom bar and if they were in the movies how did they switch to tv shows. I would prefer that library navigation was not part of that bottom bar.

From the 'Movies' library screen I was showing them how to navigate through the libraries using the library name at the top of the screen. When one asked how come the 'Home' item in the bottom bar was green instead of the 'Movies' icon. Told them it was a bug and don't worry about it.

 

Navigating through the libraries was fine on all except for 'Live TV' which did not allow you to pick a different library to navigate to.

The second section from the home screen image with the 'Home' and 'Favorites' links has always kind bugged me. So much screen real-estate to let me know I'm on the home screen and a link I seldom use. I would like to see that removed and the 'Favorites' put in the bottom bar,

With the various things I mentioned above the bottom bar would look like this:

and the changed home screen something like this:

 

The final thing I want to mention deals with item 1 on the original screen image and it isn't specifically an Android item. When we setup the android tablet they were not really thrilled with the user switching process. I've never found it particularly difficult but they seemed to feel that they should be able to just tap the picture, tap the other user and be done. In other words - they want to skip the sign out stuff and just show the user selection screen.

 

 

[pünktchen 1258]

All valid points.

[Luke 37063]

Hi there, yes we'll look at improving this. Thanks for the feedback.

[xd003 5]

Totally agreed with all the points mentioned. Everyone do report major issues but good to see such things coming by. I hope it doesn't gets lost in the mix being something not very critical and makes it to the final update. 

Edited March 14, 2021 by xd003

[Luke 37063]

I've made a couple of these changes already - removing the 3-dot menu next to My Media, and renaming the More button to Settings to be more explicit.

[RogerK 9]

I noticed the changes and appreciate that you responded so quickly. Thanks