Does The Roku Channel interface offer a premium experience?
Does The Roku Channel interface offer a premium experience?
The Roku Channel often likes to operate like a paid streamer, even though it’s free. Does the user interface live up to that philosophy?
For a free streaming service, it feels like The Roku Channel is trying to do a lot of things that paid streamers do. The service has its own original content, and even some live sporting events to go with its inventory of licensed TV shows and movies, as well as its selection of free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels.
I was especially excited to give The Roku Channel’s interface a thorough test, as the streamer does so much to make it feel like you’re getting a high-quality experience when you use it. Does that expectation live up to reality? Keep reading to see what I think about the streamer’s user experience on my (non-Roku) smart TV here.
How did I score the Roku Channel user interface?
Does The Roku Channel have a good home page?
One of the biggest marks of a good home page for me is easy accessibility to the Continue Watching row, and there are high marks for Roku here. The streamer puts Continue Watching just one row down from the Featured row at the top of the home screen, making it easy to jump back in where you left off your last viewing session.
The Roku Channel home screen gives you the Continue Watching row quickly. Click to expand.
The Featured row at the top knows me; lately, I’ve basically only been watching “The Great American Baking Show” on The Roku Channel, and all of the visible titles in the row were related to “Baking Show” as a result. Clearly, there’s a content recommendation algorithm at play here, which is not always a given for free streaming services.
Scrolling down, one of the rows I most appreciated seeing quickly was New This Month. A free streamer like The Roku Channel rotates content in and out frequently, so getting to see what fresh titles the service has incoming, even if there aren’t necessarily a lot of things I want to watch there. Same with the Leaving Soon row — nice to know what I’ll no longer have access to soon.
There are live TV rows on The Roku Channel home screen as well, and I’m pleased to say that none of them start any kind of autoplay of those channels when you hover over them. Honestly, the only reason I’m not giving The Roku Channel home screen a perfect score is because I’m not sure it meets the standard of not having a single area where it could improve — even if I can’t say specifically what that might be.
Home screen score: 9.5 out of 10
Is content discovery easy on The Roku Channel?
The algorithm at work on The Roku Channel isn’t as robust as Netflix’s, but it will still offer a good mix of standard content rows and more personalized recommendations. There isn’t an unending scroll of them; however, the Roku Channel home page starts over if you scroll down far enough, but thankfully, the search icon is easily found in the left-hand menu to help you continue finding what you’re looking for.
Search was easy enough to use on my device, but I was disappointed to see that when I searched for things on The Roku Channel, it did not offer a universal search that checks across the various streaming services The Roku Channel distributes subscriptions to on Roku streaming players. Perhaps that universal search is available on Roku devices, but it didn’t work on my Fire TV.
Content discovery score: 7.5 out of 10
Can you move between categories easily on The Roku Channel?
The left-hand menu on The Roku Channel interface has lots of options, which make it quite easy to move between categories on the streamer. Customers can use the menu to navigate the following options: Home, Live TV, Kids and Family, TV Series, Movies, Categories, Search, Roku Originals, and Settings and Account.
Clicking the Categories option is an especially good experience on The Roku Channel, since you can browse the genres you love best and jump straight to them in this sub-menu. You can go through categories like Action, Horror, Romance, and even Sports here, and filter out all the other genres that Roku Channel offers to narrow your choices.
I’m going to get even closer to a perfect score for The Roku Channel in this area than I did above. The streamer makes it delightfully simple to switch between categories and narrow down your browsing choices using the left-hand menu, particularly the Categories option.
Category switching score: 9.75 out of 10
How are Roku Channel’s playback controls?
The playback controls on The Roku Channel once again have plenty going for them. Viewers will see “Captions & audio track,” “Watch from beginning,” and “Next” buttons when the controls are first called up, all useful to have if a bit basic. But viewers will also see a More to Watch button under the playback bar, and this is where the extra comes in.
Scrolling down to this section includes other episodes from the season you’re watching, as well as recommendations based on that title. Everything I want is available in these playback controls, and there’s nothing I don’t want, since the recommendation row doesn’t automatically pop up and take valuable screen real estate until I ask for it.
The Roku Channel’s playback controls allow you to explore beyond the show you’re watching, but only if you scroll to that information. Click to expand.
Playback controls score: 10 out of 10
Does The Roku Channel make it easy to skip credits?
Skipping credits on The Roku Channel is easy, as the skip button pops up on both opening and closing credits automatically. I found it stayed on the screen for me until I chose to use it, though I will say I didn’t get much time to decide whether or not I wanted to skip the closing credits before the decision was made for me.
Skipping credits score: 7 out of 10
Final thoughts
The Roku Channel didn’t disappoint, even though I came into this exercise with lofty expectations about the streamer’s user interface. I found it to be very intuitive, easy to use, and really easy to navigate around. Its playback controls are superb, and the streamer gives the definite premium feel I’ve come to expect from a paid streamer. There are some minor areas to work on for The Roku Channel, but as free streamers go, its user experience is very impressive.
Overall score: 9 out of 10
Roku Channel
The Roku Channel is a free, ad-supported streaming service that offers a broad mix of movies, TV shows, live linear channels, and original programming. Available to all viewers — not just Roku device owners — the service features licensed content from major studios alongside Roku Originals, which include exclusive series, movies, and specials previously produced for Quibi, as well as new original projects developed specifically for the platform.