The time had come. I had mooched off of my friend’s Netflix account long enough and it was time to go legit and sign up for my own account. Go me! But before I can stop patting myself on the back for being a responsible upstanding citizen, I begin cursing the Samsung Smart TV (why did I blame the tv?) as I struggle to find some Account or Menu option in Netflix to log out of my friend’s account and into my own.
After a few wasted minutes I hit Google and see this at the top of the search results:
I read this and chuckled to myself thinking this code looks like something out of an 80s video game. It’s not. Look at the URL at the bottom of the box. This is from Netflix’s own Help documentation.
It’s true! And the worst (best?) part is that it worked! Well it worked in that it displays the active account information and allows the option to “Deactivate” the device. That’s how Netflix designed for the use case logging out or switch between accounts? Really?
How in the bloody hell does Netflix expect ANYONE to be able to log out of an account without Googling to find this bizarre code? Zero findability for such a basic feature. They must not want to let users easily logout, but why?
What if I told you that if you decided to cancel your Netflix account, but forgot to deactivate it on your TV or worse, you forgot to tell your friends/family that shared your account that you’ve cancelled and they watch something on one of their already logged in/impossible to logout devices your account will automatically be reinstated and you’ll be billed?! (Note: I haven’t been able to validate that claim I read in a forum while researching the issue, but even if it’s not the case now it could’ve certainly been the case at one point because this issue has been existing since at least 2011.)
THAT is why user experience is so important and why I’m so passionate about the field. Is this an intentional ploy by Netflix to make it difficult to logout or did they just not feel it a priority to fix in the past five years that this madness has been going on?
My Two Cents
The solution here is pretty simple. There needs to be a top level menu where things like Profile, Account Settings and Preferences live. While they’re at it, the horizontal scrolling to browse has got to go, but that’s a post for another day. I still love you, Netflix.