Responsibilities
UX Designer along with 2 group members
Interviews, C&C Analysis, Affinity Mapping, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing
Pushing through with coffee☕️ and late-night oil🚀
Project Context
A conceptual bootcamp project
Designed in 2 weeks: June 2022
PROBLEM
Netflix lacks social aspects while struggling to maintain at the top of streaming services.
With 222 million paid membership over 190 countries, Netflix has grown tremendously to be among the best streaming services in the world for many years. However, Netflix reported its first drop in subscribers in over 10 years in the first quarter of 2022. The survey data shows that overall cancellations hit 3.6 million people that quarter, an increase from the 2.5 million cancellations in the past five quarters. 13% of cancellations are from subscribers who have been with Netflix over three years.
Competition is brutal. But opportunities await.
Netflix has benefited from the Covid-19, and it still can. Throughout the pandemic, the way people connect has been changed—due to reduced face-to face interaction, increased virtual connection, working from home, etc. Even as we are slowly getting back to a level of normalcy, many trends and habits will lead to permanent shifts. People are eager to find a way to reconnect with friends and family in this new state.
THE SOLUTION
Netflix Connect: Presenting Netflix more than a streaming service (link to the final prototype)
Instead of overhauling the existing Netflix app, we will add a thoughtful feature called Netflix Connect.
DESIGN PROCESS
Double Diamond
SECONDARY RESEARCH
We saw a 25% increase in prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide
We draw from research articles on topics such as depression, human connection, Covid-19, and etc.. We stumbled upon an eye-opening statistic from the World Health Organization:
“In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by a massive 25%... One major explanation for the increase is the unprecedented stress caused by the social isolation resulting from the pandemic.”
Reconnection is a must-go.
SURVEYS
Major Insights
USER INTERVIEWS
“If Netflix had this [group watching] built in I would use it because the third-party one I’ve used (teleparty) is kind of tough to set up.”
We conducted interviews with 8 people who had experience with streaming services. We asked them general questions about their habits of using streaming services. We also dug into the stories about how they use Netflix to get a more specific understanding.
THE MAIN INSIGHT
Users want the ability to watch movies with friends and family remotely because it is a way for them to connect.
Key Quotes directly from the users:
“There’s a third-party service to allow us to live chat but not watch together. I wish there was a remote-viewing feature built into Netflix.”
“It’s hard to chat over movies especially you facetimed and tried watch movie. It’s not ideal.”
OTHER INSIGHTS
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Some competitors do have built-in party-view feature, BUT…
We analyzed 5 of the most competitive streaming services: Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, HBO MAX, Disney+, Paramount+. We found that Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ provide an in-site watch party feature, but neither of them provides a way to match movies with your party members. This then became our opportunity to make our solution shine.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Swiping: gamify the miserable decision-making process
We analyzed Tinder and Bumble as comparatives. They’re both focused on creating social connections and are famous for their swiping feature. Swiping is like a second nature that users can master intuitively. Swiping allows users to navigate and make decisions at the same time, with a satisfaction of seeing an instant reaction as they touch the element. How to simplify and speed the process of deciding on movies? Swiping may be the answer.
TWO THINGS HAPPENED HERE
How can we satisfy business goals and user needs within constraints? —Feature Prioritization.
We were excited about the trends after synthesizing the data. Then our notion board reminded us that we are constrained by time. Complexity kills magic! To avoid that, we prioritized our features using the Moscow Method. Party-View and Agreeing tied for first place.
M-Must have: party-view/movie-match
S-Should have: none
C-Could have: none
W-Won’t have: Customizing/ Subtitles Filtering
From designing for tv to designing for a mobile app
Data from surveys and interviews indicate that most users primarily use streaming service on tv because of better watching experience (big screen, solid sound system, combination of these two is a “bomb”). We were aiming at the tv screen design. However, after prioritizing Party-View and Movie-Match as our main features, we realized it would go way beyond a remote’s capability. How can we use our phones as remotes to control the process?
A study found out that people are obsessed with their phones. The heaviest smartphone users click, tap or swipe on their phone 5,427 times a day. We can take advantage of this pre-existing habit to make the whole process more intuitive. Let’s shift our direction—design for a mobile app!
PERSONA
The Lonely Transplant
SKETCHES
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” — Helen Keller
We worked through a design studio to find the intersection of our ideas. We drew sketches for 10 minutes individually, presented them to team members, gave and received critique.
LOW-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
Basic skeleton of Netflix Connect
MID-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
Brought movie-match swiping feature alive + Added more details
USABILITY TESTING—ROUND 1
When one team member was conducting the usability testing, the other two were observing.
We did usability testing together. We wanted to get the most out of the limited usability testing we were able to conduct within time constraint. Just like Jakob Nielsen said:
“Observing users, that’s how we gain wisdom.”
TASKS
1-Host a Party-View session with your friends.
2-Vote on what you all want to watch.
3-Start your movie and cast it to your TV.
6 major improvements
Based on the observation as well as the feedback from 6 participants, we iterated our design with 6 major improvements:
USABILITY TESTING—ROUND 2
Same tasks + new participants = clear comparison
We conducted the same tasks as in round 1 with 5 new participants on our iterated design. This allowed us to get a clearer comparison between results we got from two rounds of tests.
Round 1 vs Round 2 Metrics
Average task completion time went down 25%.
Average number of “Go Action” went down 30%.
Average number of errors went down 100% to 0.
2 major improvements
Behind these screens, our team added and examined connection carefully between screens and buttons to present a brand-new feature for Netflix users.
POST PROJECT
Updated swiping feature
While writing this case study, I updated the swiping feature to create extra depth of the interaction. When users swipe the first movie away, they will see the second movie going through an interaction with the size grows.
Before
After
THE FINAL SCREENS
NEXT STEPS
What additional features we can add in the future:
Subtitles: Develop a feature to allow for two different subtitles to be played simultaneously
Home screen customization: Allow users to custom sort their home screens
Additional filters: Develop additional sorting and filtering options
Public watch parties: Enable users to watch movies with strangers remotely thus fostering a Netflix online community
CONCLUSION + LESSON LEARNED
What can I do better?
This is the first-ever UX group project I ever have. I’m truly grateful to have been through the entire UX process so I can validate my gaining from lectures.
Usability test of competitors with party-view feature with users can be informative.
Do more topic research. After finishing this project, I found out that Netflix tried to implement social strategy back in 2004 by launching Friends. This feature allows subscribers to invite friends to join their network, and then share movie reviews and ratings with them. Netflix killed the feature in 2010. Exploring why this feature didn’t succeed can be insightful for our design.
Set design principles. These principles can help us maintain the direct relationship between the research results and UI design.
I’m thankful to have David and Derrek as my group members who were informative, supportive and encouraging all the time. I’m thankful for all the feedback provided by our instructors and peers. I’m thankful that with the efforts of the whole group, I pushed myself hard to make this app as best as I could.
