I recently read an Article on the NYTimes website which talked about the success of Hulu in hosting popular TV shows and movies and they mention how YouTube is trying to move in on that game. There are many reasons I think YouTube will have trouble with this, but the NYTimes writer made an effort to point out how Hulu had a much better design and was easier to navigate by far.
In order to show this comparison they compared the American Glaiators Page on YouTube to the American Gladiators Page on Hulu. I will let you decided whose page looks better, but I think the winner is pretty obvious and that’s a big plus for Hulu.
The Importance of Design
As a designer I found it refreshing to see some one point out how very important design truly is for user experience. I have always believed a website design can make or break a site in certain aspects and I think this could be very true for Hulu and Facebook and even reminds me of the MySpace vs. Facebook.
I believe MySpace got very large, out of control and messy looking and then Facebook came into the game and was way better designed and cleaner and I think this is a large part of the success of Facebook. I see the same thing happening to YouTube.
YouTube is getting very big and messy looking and while Hulu currently specializes in TV shows and movies as opposed to mass user generated videos, its become a huge name in the online video industry. Once again I believe this is largely do to the sites beautiful and innovate design, clean navigation and overall simplicity. How do you guys think the design of YouTube’s site will shape its chances of competing with Hulu?
