Hi Dieogee 
I apologize in advance, this message will be more direct than the previous ones.
First, let me tell that the base idea of this update is great. I love the idea of having the sidebar, it will be super useful and finally bring a better experience for viewers. It’s something that was missing and this part here is on the right direction for everyone. I hated seeing buttons to open extensions.
But for me Twitch is publishing a half finished job here.
The research
It’s great to know that this research has been conducted for several months, but the dev community also had to learn how to design extensions.
I spent months working with a UX designer friend to refine our extension design, to have a design that is as less intrusive as possible and as flexible as possible to create a great experience for both viewers and streamers.
And now I’m being told I need to throw all these months of work away, because it’s meant to be flexible and the update is not meant to create flexible extensions.
Let’s take an example
Right now there is a lot of problems in term of UX and it’s great to see some ideas to solve them. But I still think this should be done also in the review process
For example, the Rage2 extension should never have passed the review process.
The UX is horrible and is just a pain as a viewer to have the big bar in the middle of the screen.
And instead of making sure extension have a proper UX experience by giving simple rules for the review process, this update is just saying “we don’t trust developers to bring a great experience so you will just do basic webpages”.
Review Process
The review process should include a design review too. We need to improve the quality of extension, not make them all the same. An extension got a shitty UX? It doesn’t pass the review. Period.
With this update, you take away all the innovation, creativity potential and new great ideas that can be done with video component extensions and throw it into a fire without looking back.
The delay
To make it worst you only give us 2 months for these changes. Most of the small devs have a job on the side and redoing the design of several extension in a good way will take way more than 2 months because this is not the same design rules AT ALL.
I spent 2 weeks deciding how to design a horizontal menu for my configuration page and it took me around 6 months to have a design I’m satisfied with for the video component.
I now have a full-time job, and a second extension to update too. I can’t possibly update both my extension in only 2 months
This update would have been a great first step to introduce video component, not to “improve” them. We are going backward here. You are just removing possibilities without giving anything in return to the dev community to create a great experience for the community.
Also, you say it’s the result of several months of research, but we never heard of it before, did you even ask the indy dev community? Nothing was posted on the dev discord, nothing from extension partner manager, nothing from the newsletter, nothing from other members of the extension teams.
The community is willing to help, we already build tools and help people who want to create extensions, we help streamers to understand extensions. Just ask us, don’t tell us “we decided for you”.
What is missing
- The design itself should be improved and don’t feel like a pop up on top of the stream. I got complain that a button to open an extension was like a “spam pop up” imagine how people will react if we put a window on top of the stream.
- Give guidelines more than forcing a specific type of design
- Add tools for developers, give us a way to notify viewers, maybe a way to control what extension should be displayed, Improve the extension activation flow, etc
- Give more control to the streamer. Allow a “displayed by default” extension, give the streamer the possibility to force an extension to be visible by all the viewers, so they don’t have to say “hey click on the extension … , it’s on the right of the stream, there is 3 square, click on the 3rd one” for start a poll, or any live event using an extension
TL;DR
Pros:
- Finally we get a standardized display for extension
- The base idea with a sidebar on the right is really great, it’s the perfect place for interactivity next to the chat
- The end of extension buttons mess is finally here
Cons:
- With this update, you are forcing us to create “pop up” extensions, not extensions that live with the stream.
- You are destroying most of the creative potential of video component extension
- There is no flexibility with the design, you need a constant size.
- You push arbitrary design rules that are valid only for a part of video component extension and don’t offer a solution for the others
- You did not ask the indy dev community their opinion and just give us your decision
- This update is not a finished one. Take more time to polish it.
What I think you should do for this update:
- Delay it, refine it more.
- Add more functionalities to include all the different kind of video component extensions
- Ask the dev community directly we will help you
And a final word: Trust us.