YouTube has announced three new feature changes, which will be rolled out over the coming days, and are aimed at enhancing user experience on the platform by giving more customising power to them.

These features will help you explore topics right from your homepage and customise related videos in ‘Up Next’ videos, remove channel suggestions and also learn why a video was suggested to you.

“One thing we’ve consistently heard from you is that you want more control over what videos appear on your homepage and in Up Next suggestions. So we’re doing more to put you in the driver’s seat,” the company states.

In the News: YouTube rethinks policy on homophobia after social media uproar

Homepage update

Users will now be shown topics on their homepage and clicking on a topic will show videos related to it. Another update comes to the ‘Up Next’ section when viewing a video where now users can control whether those are from all the channels or a specific channel, including the one you’re watching.

These options will be based on the personalised suggestions that already exist in your YouTube profile database.

This feature is currently only being rolled out in English and will be available to users who are signed into the Android/iOS app or desktop browser. Topic and Up Next selection will be introduced in other languages soon.

Removing suggestions

YouTube is giving users more control but not on what is suggested to them rather on what they don’t want in their suggestions while admitting that “we don’t always get it right, so we are giving you more controls for when we don’t.”

All that needs to be done to stop YouTube from suggesting videos from a channel is to tap on the three-dot menu next to a video from that channel — either on the homepage or in Up Next — and select ‘Don’t recommend channel’.Doing this won’t unsubscribe or block the channel, users will still be able to find them via search and or see their videos in the Trending tab.

The feature has been rolled out for Android and iOS and will be coming to desktop soon.

Learn more about suggestions

At times YouTube recommends videos from channels that users are neither subscribed to nor have watched their videos. Now onwards, information about why this video is being suggested will be shown underneath the video.

According to the company, these recommendations are usually made “based on what other viewers with similar interests have liked and watched in the past.”“Our goal is to explain why these videos surface on your homepage in order to help you find videos from new channels you might like.”

The ‘learn more’ feature has been rolled out globally for iOS today and will be coming to Android and desktop soon.

Also read: Netflix vs Amazon Prime Video vs Hotstar vs YouTube Premium