I HATE DIRECTV STREAM

It's not about service, It's about software design. Everyone just uses it thinking they are doing something wrong when it's just bad design.

I can make a list. It's a long list.

Start with simply scrolling through the guide. Horrible. Skips channels. Hard to concentrate on what's on TV.

How about the way you select lists or let's talk about how the user is supposed to know how to get back to their main screen when they open the app and it goes directly into a channel playing. Swipe up is not the way you do it. People want to use the home button to go "home" not exit.

On and on.

Horrible

I use DirecTV Stream with a DirecTV Stream box and Roku. I don't experience any of the issues you mention. It's true that the user interface varies across different platforms, but that's true of every streaming app. 

No issues with the guide. It is what it is. Check out guides on other services - Sling for sure. Not happy then move on. No one is holding your hand.

Let's talk about the blue underscore as a way of knowing where the cursor is. Like when it's underscors "Return to Video". Poor design. The user should not have to look for where the blue line is. It should be the most prominent think on the screen, like a mouse cursor. It should be a glow. The user is moving the cursor, so it's not supposed to be hard to find with all the other things on the screen. You should have to think or ask yourself where it is.

Just move the cursor around and notice all the times you lose it.

Then leave. No big deal with me. Not had any trouble navigating the service.

I use a Directv Stream box and side loaded android tv app. Both work fine for me. I've never had an issue navigating the menus, guide, or anything else. I switched over from cable tv. I also tried Hulu live and Youtube TV.  Directv stream is superior to everything I have used in the past.

I had to move from Youtube TV to DirecTV Stream and Youtube was way way better and smarter.

You're tell me if you scroll down the guide it is better than a free app like Pluto?

You don't see any problem with the sluggishness?

Oh, and last night I caught a channel that I record while in progress. You can't start from the beginning. These are all available in other apps.

It's a horrible interface.

I use a directv stream box as my primary device. I've been using it for 5 months and have experience 0 instances of sluggishness. Also, Youtube tv doesn't offer regional sports networks (Bally's sports midwest for me) and dtv offers more channels overall. I love the Dtv stream guide works really well. Easy to scroll down and the info that pops up on each show as you scroll is great. If you don't want to miss a show then set up a series recording. Also, if you catch a show in the middle, Dtv stream offers a "restart" episode on most shows or you can catch it later in on demand. Not sure why you keep posting negative comments. If you don't like the service move on already.

Bad design:

1. Opened DTVS

2. Automatically plays last channel

3. Move cursor down the list.

4. Want to get back to my home (main screen)

5. Hit home

6. Cursor is on Watch Now (underlined)

7. What the heck is playing behind the screen?

8. How do I clear the menu?

9. Hit home

10. The blue line moves to upper right corner Return to video

What is that? video??? What's playing???

Why not highlight the program that's playing in the menu or just clear the menus because that's what Return to Video does. If I hit home again "ASK" to Exit instead of quit the whole app and have to go back in and go through the whole thing again.

You think its going to get better? Stay around and shove that money out for a service that you are not happy with. You deserve the price increase.

From what I can understand, you’re issue is more lack of familiarity with the app, than problems with function. I prefer Directv Stream over YouTube TV, but do remember that when I switched, there was a time period that it took to orient. You may have a point that DTVstream is slightly less intuitive, but just because something is different than other applications doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. I’m enjoying it much more than many of the apps you mentioned. Maybe try spending a bit more time with it. I’m glad it’s not YouTube TV however, video and FPS are far superior in both form and function. 

I'm a software developer. It drives me crazy!

Time to move on! Closing this thread.

Reopened.  Just because it is irritating you is not a reason to close the thread.

@ggreen1212 - the "you" you are talking to here are other customers.  No one from DirecTV (and earlier, AT&T) that it would be useful to raise issues like this to ever show up here, and as far as we can tell to date they never even get apprised of the feedback.  This isn't a good thing, and I'm not aware of any other mechanism to provide feedback.

That said, the choices for a UI are subjective.  I personally don't think the choices they made are great, but I don't think they are as abysmal as you believe. 

I assume you are using the DirecTV branded streamer, as the "home" button on the other streaming devices takes you out of the app completely to the "native" home screen.  I don't quite follow your list of items.  Which list you are moving your cursor down in point #3 - did you open the EPG?  For point #7, I'd assume the last channel you were displaying is what shows - no?  In point #8, what menu are you seeing?  And I've never seen what you indicate in point #10, nor am I familiar with anything that says "Return to video" - are you on a different device?

There are many features lacking in the service, and there are aspects of the UX that could be much better (in my opinion, anyway), but given the current limitations in the feature set (and the need to run on commodity streamers), the aesthetics and GUI choices have never been the major concern to me.

I mainly use the Apple TV app. To most people, they won't question the design of the UI, but being a developer it bothers me more. Maybe I should be a consultant ;-) because I might see thing differently. I wrote that quick list to describe just one use case.

Here's a simpler example of only one thing. This is how you clear the options to watch what is playing in the background - why can't it just have a button highlighted and showing the channel that is playing? It says Return to Video. What video? Why even use that word. It's a channel to most people. And you have to pay attention that the cursor is the underline. It doesn't glow or do anything. It takes getting used to but why? My mom is always asking me to fix the TV and she uses computers all the time.