My criticisms of Hulu's Watchlist and ways to make it more user friendly

My husband and I have been Hulu subscribers for years. We were among the bleeding edge of “cord cutters” and Hulu was a big part of that. We eventually went back to cable due to a good deal from the cable company and the difficulty of the intricate system we had in place. Now, we are preparing to cut the cord again, but we are finding major issues with the Watchlist.

In the early days, we added current TV shows to our Favorites list. This list allowed us to use the queue as a type of DVR, with new episodes automatically added to the queue the day after the show aired. We used the Shows You Watch list as a list of show we watched when we were just killing time.

1. There is no way to remove an episode that you watched live from the Watchlist.

I guess that is not completely accurate, according to a conversation I had on Twitter with @hulusupport, you can choose an episode and fast forward through it. Which, compared to the queue (and the ‘remove show from queue’ button), is a waste of time and a waste of data.

2. There is no way to shelve seasonal shows when they are off the air.

All summer, I had a list of shows, with no new episodes, that air from September through May. The other day, I just finally removed all of the summer shows because I don’t want to look at them for the next 9 months.

3. The Watchlist is cluttered.

The beauty of the queue is that it acted like a To Do list. Ok, maybe that is my OCD personality kicking in. I love to check things off a list and clearing out the queue gave me the same satisfaction as checking things off a list.

With the Watchlist, I have weekly shows that I need to watch and I have a huge list of shows that I turn on when I just need noise in the background. These are not shows that I need to keep track of daily. I don’t really need to know that I still have 112 episodes of Seinfeld to watch or 12 episodes of Pramface left.

4. Hulu doesn’t seem to care that customers are finding the Watchlist difficult to use.

The company line seems to be “the more you use it, the better it will get”. However, the customers are giving their feedback…saying we need these things to make it better, but no improvements have come out. We rarely used Hulu this summer, choosing to watch things On Demand instead.

Do I think I can eventually enjoy the Watchlist? Maybe. If Hulu were to take the criticisms and concerns of their customers, it could become great! Honestly, if I could get a 'mark episode watched' button, I would be a happy camper.

#hulu #television