YouTube adds a new swipe-based navigation feature

YouTube has added a new navigation feature which will enable users to swipe horizontally through videos. The feature will be launched this week and is currently only available on iOS devices.

YouTube is currently the most popular video streaming platform and with over 70% of its viewing coming from mobile users, the video-streaming platform is testing out new features to improve the overall user experience on smartphones. In a bid to synchronize its user experience with the modern iOS and Android swipe-based navigation, the uber-popular video-streaming giant has introduced this swipe navigation feature.

The new swipe-based navigation makes it easier to navigate through videos and discover new content creators. YouTube users can now navigate through their video history, this basically includes a ‘swipe-forward’ feature which allows the user to view the next recommended video while the ‘swipe-backward’ feature allows the user to see their viewing history, the video will resume from where the user left off after swiping back.

In the last few months or so, YouTube has added a lot of new features to improve the user experience for mobile users. Features such as screen time control, dark mode, auto-playing video on mobile app’s homepage, and YouTube stories have all made their way to the mobile app in the last year or so. In 2017 YouTube added in-app video sharing and messaging and also started working on better viewing experience by supporting different video formats when viewed in the app. The “double-tap to jump 10 seconds forward or backward” was another attempt by the video-streaming giant to make navigation as smooth as possible on mobile devices.

With more and more people preferring to use a mobile device for content consumption, YouTube will, for the foreseeable future, keep adding more mobile-friendly features for its audience. The ‘swipe to switch videos’ feature is rolling out to iOS devices later this week. However, it’s still unknown if and when it will be available on for the Android devices.