Is the Prime Video user interface treated as an afterthought?
Is the Prime Video user interface treated as an afterthought?
Prime Video is just one aspect of the sprawling Amazon app family. Is its user experience up to snuff?
Amazon has a lot going on. Not only does it maintain a huge inventory of items for easy sale and shipment on its e-commerce platform, it’s also responsible for upkeep of subscription services like Audible, Amazon Music, and Prime Video. With all of those various services and products on offer, Amazon must have plenty of challenges in presenting all that material to customers in a way that makes sense.
Do those challenges manifest as a vexing user interface in the Prime Video streamer? Or does the service do a good job of delivering viewers with recommendations for shows and movies? Read more of my thoughts on how the streamer lays things out here.
How do we score Prime Video’s user interface?
Does Prime Video have a good home page?
Most streaming home pages do things more or less the same way. The top of the screen has a carousel of new arrivals and titles that the streamer wants to steer you toward, and below that you’ll find additional tile rows stuffed with titles you were previously watching, recommendations for future viewing, and various compilations of the streamer’s content into categories sharing a particular theme.
Prime Video does things a little differently with its home page. Amazon obviously has a huge presence in e-commerce in general, and Prime Video’s connected TV app doesn’t let you forget it. The top-of-screen carousel, as well as the first three rows of tiles underneath it, are all packed with titles you must rent or purchase, or subscribe to additional streamers through Prime Video to watch. Only when you get through these rows will you get to your Continue Watching.
To be sure, you can scroll over to the small Prime logo at the top of the screen to filter out shows and movies you have to buy. It makes it feel much less Amazon is rolling out the sales pitch as a consequence of your daring to use its streaming service, but I wish this were backward — that is to say, I wish the Prime Video home page only showed titles that come with a Prime Video subscription as the default, and purchase and rental titles were confined to their own special tab.
The Prime tab shows you only movies and shows you don’t have to pay extra for with a Prime Video subscription. Click to expand.
I think the titles within the recommendation rows under the Continue Watching row on the Prime Video home screen do a good job of paying attention too what I’ve watched previously, but the names of those content rows are rather bland. Options like Movie Selections and Spotlight movies don’t exactly make it feel as if Prime Video has any particular desire to track or satisfy my preferences.
Home screen score: 5 out of 10
Is content discovery easy on Prime Video?
The search function is at the top of the left-hand menu, and connects you easily enough to the vast catalog of Prime Video titles you can rent, as well as those you can watch with a subscription. Just as I didn’t much care for the e-commerce applications on the Prime Video home screen, I actually do like them here. Prime Video shows you with a small briefcase symbol each title that you have to pay extra to watch on the streamer.
This takes the guesswork out of the equation immediately, and to its credit, Prime Video has a large catalog of titles that you may only want to watch once, and don’t need a new streaming subscription to watch. Being able to search for those titles with ease on Prime Video is a definite plus.
Content discovery score: 9 out of 10
How easy is it to move between categories on Prime Video?
Prime Video actually has two menus: a left-hand menu that includes Search, Main Menu, My Stuff, and Settings, and a top menu that includes Movies, TV Shows, Live TV, the Prime tab, where you see only titles included with your Prime Video subscriptions, and the Subscriptions store that allows you to purchase additional streamers through Prime Video.
The Live TV section is where you’ll find free streaming channels from Prime Video, and they’re in abundance. Sports is a good way to filter out all the on-demand content from Prime Video that isn’t sports-related and see all the live and upcoming programming available on the streamer.
It’s all perfectly easy to get through, and the My Stuff tab in the left-hand menu will hold any titles you’ve rented or purchased on Prime Video. Sporting events — and there are plenty to watch with the service, including the NFL and NBA games starting in October 2025 — are easy to find in the Sports tab, and are also well-advertised in the main content carousel on the Prime Video home screen when applicable.
Category switching score: 9.5 out of 10
How are Prime Video’s playback controls?
The Prime Video playback controls are easy to use, but don’t have as many options as some streamers. You do get the ability to fast-forward, rewind, control subtitles and audio options, and watch with X-Ray enabled or see an AI recap.
If you choose to watch with X-Ray, you’ll see a wealth of information about the title you’re watching, including details about the cast in a given scene, links to information from IMDb, trivia, and more fun facts and behind-the-scenes data. The amount of information available on X-Ray can vary from title to title, but I still think it’s a pretty great feature of the service.
Prime Video’s playback controls have unique features like X-Ray viewing and AI Recap. Click to expand.
One thing you won’t see is options to browse through seasons of the show you’re watching. Buttons that allow you to skip to the next episode and restart the episode round out the playback controls. Overall, I love X-Ray and am doling out some extra points for its inclusion, but the lack of ability to browse through seasons or recommendations pulls a few points back.
Playback controls score: 7.5 out of 10
Does Prime Video make it easy to skip credits?
When the opening credits roll on Prime Video, the Skip Intro button does come up fairly immediately. You only get a few seconds to use it before it disappears from the screen again, as Prime Video assumes you want to watch. However, the skip intro option lives on in the playback controls if you end up wanting to move on after all.
At the close of an episode, the Skip Credits feature comes up and gives you just three seconds to make a decision on whether you want to watch them or move ahead. It’s a little fast for my taste, but if you choose to watch, you can skip ahead to the next episode at any time while they run.
Ease of skipping credits score: 8 out of 10
Final thoughts
Once you get past the attempts to sell you things on Prime Video, there are actually some pretty intuitive and cool features to use, like X-Ray when you get to watching. And the e-commerce features aren’t necessarily always a bad thing; Prime Video frequently allows viewers to rent or buy movies that aren’t easily found elsewhere.
But it’s hard to escape the feeling that Prime Video is trying to sell you something in general when you use the service, and that’s less than ideal in my eyes. I can’t give the Prime Video user experience a perfect score by any means, but I won’t be trashing it either.
Overall Prime Video score: 7.5 out of 10
Prime Video
Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.