I often show Trakt to new people because I love it. I love it because of the power. You can just do SO MUCH with it.
Almost every person I show find its overwhelming, especially trying to understand the difference between the Watchlist and Lists. They almost always want a very simple interface to start where they say I want to watch these movies (let me know when and how I can) and I want to watch these shows (let me know when new episodes are available and where). And that is all they want. At least until they get hooked.
Most of them end up on Reelgood. Its easier and uses mostly the same data.
Have other people experienced the same thing? How can Trakt win these people over?
I am not sure this is a good example to compare Trakt to Reelgood. They both do track stuff, but differently. This isnāt comparing apples to apples, this is comparing apples to oranges.
Reelgood provides info about where to watch shows on streaming services. Well, Trakt does this too, but Trakt is a website dedicated to actually tracking what you watch.
You should tell/show them the very basics to get started, and then they should dive into the tutorials (and find some of the āhow toāsā like this category: Tutorials - Trakt Forums
Hope this helps. Trakt is probably the best and easiest application of itās kind that I have come across (Iāve used TV Time, Just Watch and even tried using TMDB for tracking). Non of the others offer the amount of features.
Also, if it will help more, PM me and I can try to help your friends as well.
We are working on Trakt Lite to help with this type of complexity problem. Still in beta, but Iād be curious if they have more initial success using it.
The easiest way Iāve found is just focus on one thing at a time. Start with shows and āthe purple checkmarkā if they donāt automatically scrobble. Then they will get their next up and calendar building for them. Once they are comfortable with that, add a few movies to a watchlist. Little by little they will become proficient.
Hey Mr i totally know where you are coming from. Iāve been a member for a good few years and was always VIP, but I ended up going free because I never used many of the features because they overwhelmed me.
Im now back to VIP and Iām determined to use as many of the features as i can.
Can i ask what features you use the most? Ill be honest ive always really only used it to keep track of what Iām watching mainly on the app Syncler and only recently Netflix.
When you first joined did you find it easy learning to use all the features? Do you have any pointers you gave your friends that you could share with me?
I use the Watchlist to put in every movie I want to see and then save the URL I have filtered for anything thatās available on my Favorite streaming services.
I have separate lists setup for TV shows I watch and ones I watch with my wife and use the progress feature to find all unwatched episodes.
Once a week I use the calendar feature to see all the new shows and movies coming out.
And I have a list for shows that are not streaming yet (mostly UK stuff not in the US) and once a month I check to see if the new season is available. Although more often than not, my Apple āWatch Nextā alerts me when a new season is now available.
The feeds are nice for VIP members. I have thought about creating a simple app just for myself based on how I use it (see my other comment). Much easier that going through the API for a throw away project only I would use.
This post is very much to the issue that faces users of all software. For example, Microsoft Office is an extremely powerful suite but not everyone needs every feature. Why should someone spend time learning something they will never use? On the other hand, sometimes by spending time exploring those features they might find one useful that they would have never considered.
I have used Trakt through a 3rd party IOS app for quite a few years ā¦ TSTV. It covers the bases I need for shows and keeps movies that will list in a calendar view. In reviewing Trakt website on an IPad I can say I find it overwhelming in terms of the GUI. I can see features that might be nice to use but visually itās a crowded screen with small fonts and not pleasing color highlighting choices. This may work well on a good sized computer screen but not a tablet in my option. The App just doesnāt fill that gap either as it has less features and does not make good use of the IPAD screen. In both cases the calendar, which is something I use frequently, just either is too busy or too small. I get that if a show is at different times during the day that is helpful to some people to see that, but having it displayed repeatedly in the calendar day display is unnecessary. This is especially true for Netflix content. Show times could be listed with the first showing on that day.
I believe people, like myself, are more overwhelmed by the amount of choices shown on a single page rather than choices they can be accessed by a drop down menu with larger fonts. Also, the availability to customize fonts and colors on a GUI makes a huge difference in how comfortable people feel with software. Plus not everyone has the same sight or size screen that makes seeing vast amounts of choices on one screen advantageous. The third party app I, and members of my family, have been using understood that.
Trakt is a full tier service that has obviously evolved to support power users. And while I peeked at the simpler beta version which was to soften that affect, to me it went too far in the opposite direction. From my perspective, itās not the features that need to be tamed itās the visuals. Make the visuals more user friendly, keep the features, and it will entice people to try it and then perhaps dig deeper. I certainly, for one, would like to try some things to filter my watchlist but I donāt want to go cross eyed doing it.