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Netflix Gets Its Own Version of Shuffle Play; Google Maps Spotlights the Greenest Routes in Its Driving Directions
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Welcome back. The latest user-experience innovation from Netflix aims to fix a very modern malady. Google Maps will highlight the greenest way to reach your destination. And Robinhood has a customer service problem.
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Netflix user-tested a number of different names for the feature, including "Shuffle," before settling on ‘Play Something’. PHOTO: NETFLIX
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Netflix has rolled out a feature designed to alleviate the choice fatigue of viewers deciding what to watch next on a streaming service, Katie Deighton writes for the Experience Report.
The “Play Something” button starts a TV show or movie without making the subscriber do the actual deciding. Users’ prior viewing dictates what the feature serves up, and viewers can keep skipping to another movie or episode if they don’t feel like watching the one that comes on.
The company tested prototypes of Play Something for the past year, but has been aware of the problem of choice fatigue for some time, according to Keela Robison, Netflix’s vice president of product innovation. Company research found subscribers couldn’t face searching through its library at certain times, such as when they were sitting down to eat their dinner, she said.
“We always had an idea that you would be able to just turn on Netflix and it would magically play something that is just amazing for you,” Ms. Robison said.
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Maps will soon default to a route with the lowest carbon footprint, as long as it has at least as good an ETA as other options. PHOTO: ALPHABET INC.
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Google is tweaking its Maps app to highlight environmentally friendlier directions to users’ destinations, Ann-Marie Alcántara reports.
Maps will soon suggest the car route with the lowest carbon footprint, for example, as long as that route takes no longer than other options. The current system defaults to the fastest directions, without regard to carbon emissions.
Google Maps joins other transportation services trying eco-friendly user nudges that executives hope will help them meet environmental goals and compete for consumers.
But nudges aren’t always the solution, experience designers say.
“Imposing nudges at the moment might not be the best approach, primarily because you don’t know the user’s specific reason behind using the application at a given moment and it may not give way to create a constant behavior,” said Stanley Hines, a user experience designer at Stink Studios, an advertising agency.
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“The customer told us they want one pickup spot, and they want that pickup spot to be outside.”
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— Walmart on its decision to retire the hulking automated pickup towers that were erected in more than 1,500 stores to dispense online orders. The company is focusing on curbside pickup instead.
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PHOTO: EMIL LENDOF/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Robinhood is wading through a flood of customer-service requests stemming from the trading app’s soaring popularity and its January decision to curb trading in highflying stocks including GameStop, Peter Rudegeair writes.
In some cases, Robinhood has locked customers’ accounts for more than a month, denying them access to their money.
Robinhood more than tripled the number of customer-support agents on staff last year and plans to more than double their numbers again this year, said Alex Mesa, the company’s head of customer experience.
Last month it committed to hiring nearly 400 people for a new customer-support center in North Carolina.
But it is also investing in automated tools to generate the same answers to common questions that a Robinhood employee would give, only faster.
“If you, overnight, have an increase of 350% of volume, there’s just not enough humans to throw at the issue to be able to deliver effective support,” Mr. Mesa said.
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PHOTO: UNILEVER
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Unilever introduced Degree Inclusive—deodorant with packaging designed for people with disabilities. [Ad Age]
New York entrepreneurs are offering grocery deliveries that arrive in as little as 15 minutes. [WSJ]
Apple says it designed its new AirTags to protect privacy—and counter stalkers. [Fast Company]
Amazon will let Whole Foods customers around Seattle pay by palm scan. [Reuters]
You’re probably wearing your fitness tracker wrong. [WSJ]
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