YouTube

So, as a physicist with a geeky EEing boyfriend... we often watch YouTube science videos to learn how to do fun experiments and new perspectives on the world around us.  This morning, I was watching a Sick Science Playlist and became frustrated with a few things that YouTube is doing wrong/could be doing better.  Here is my list (Picture #1 has the original set-up): 

  

1. Thumbs Up? Picture #2 has the jumbled like and dislike buttons. There are two sets of them when one set would be enough... It is safe to even imagine that YouTube would be so smart as to take note of the video types you like and have one button... either a predicted preset thumbs up or thumbs down where an extra click spins it around again.  Or just having the counts of thumbs up and thumbs down change as the thumb rotates around. YouTube Starts to do this with the thumbs up in the upper right corner (red oval), which makes me wonder if they started doing this and for some reason decided to stop.
   
   
2. Navigation Picture #3 has the almost impossible to find navigation buttons. Wouldn't it be nice if all the navigation buttons were available along the video or if they were at least a different color. check out to see if you find the navigation buttons more appealing. They could even color coordinate them! Or add a second navigation bar that floats under the first one. Wouldn't that be smart and efficient?
   
   
3. Share While I agree that sometimes we subconsciously need more clues to do something (they say it takes seeing something three times before most of us will do what our marketers say that we should do)... I don't believe it's necessary to have share twice on the site. It's possible to get the point across without having it written multiple times. This is an instance of branding where an image would work well (even just a plus sign) or the logos from Facebook (c) /Twitter(c) etc. could all be moved above the embed and email for a more efficient design. I know I find it visually more appealing to just have the contents of a box change (so when you click on embed the contents of the box that currently has the URL link changes instead of the whole visual set-up)... but perhaps, that's just me.
   
   

It would be amazing if YouTube could make a few changes to make their site a little more designer friendly (I am probably being picky and spoiled... but if I am using something as often as I use YouTube... I might as well enjoy it!).