Integrating a Social Aspect into the Desktop Device
Role: UX/UI Designer & Visual Designer
Timeline: 2 Weeks
Tools: Figma, Slack, Google Drive
Skills: User Research, Visual Design, Information Architect, Prototyping
Teammates: Robert A. and Dniko G.
How does Netflix stay on top?
Netflix, a subscription-streaming service, sits as the #1 streaming platform service worldwide.
In order to stay on top, Netflix must stay innovative and continue to satisfy the needs of users. My team was tasked to see what users want for social interaction on Netflix.
Netflix’s Problem
The Trailer
Our final product tackled our users problems while staying align with the branding of Netflix. The prototyping demonstrates the new designs: Friend’s Lists, WatchParty Pop-Up, and WatchParty Sidebar features.
ACT 1: RESEARCH
Getting to Know the Audience
Each team member conducted 2 user interviews, bringing in 6 user interviews total. We discovered there were two main types of users: active users and occasional users.
Interview Question
Getting to know how the user navigates through streaming platforms
Dissecting how a users go about deciding what to watch
Understanding what they value with watching movies with friends
Key Highlights from the Audience
With these takeaways we had a better understanding of what users commonly think and do beyond just the Netflix platform. We were able to narrowed down what social features would best be integrated into the platform while maintaining Netflix branding.
Who is Netflix Competing With?
It’s no question that there are tons of different streaming platforms out there (even illegal ones). During my user interviews, I noticed that multiple users pointed out different streaming services they use for specific movies or shows. It was valuable for our research to analyze different streaming services’ visuals and system logistics. As shown below, the analysis demonstrates Hulu has all the listed features. In order to take away Hulu’s upper hand, our team knew the WatchParty function was crucial to add.
Act 2: Ideation
User Persona
Entering into the design phase my team and I created our main role, Chris! Chris stands in the middle between our active user and occasional user. We created Chris to help us all have the same user in mind while coming up with solutions for his problem.
After seeing what Chris’s main pain points were, I thought to myself….
How might we make Chris feel like his friendships hasn’t changed since moving?
How might we speed up the time it takes for Chris to choose a movie or show to watch?
How might we help Chris organize his recommendations from his friends?
Asking myself these questions before designing helped me identify the MVPs and stay user-solution based.
It’s Sketching Time!
Here are the lo-fi sketches I designed to get a clear layout of what I imagined before going digital. The goal at this stage was to design a strong foundation with the logistical function and then move forward with adding minor details after usability testing.
Act 3: Design & Design some more
Mid-Fidelity & Usability Testing
The Mid-Fidelty Prototype was intended to test how the user understands the UX writing, the UI Design, and the new icons created. The results were more successful than we anticipated, but there were still minor details to improve. Although the success rates were higher than what we expected, I took this as a motivation to challenge myself to pay closer attention to details that were overlooked.
We had 3 users test out our mid-fi prototype for the first round of testing.
Task 1: Find a movie and start a watch party.
Task 2: Find a movie through a friend’s list and start a watch party.
What Critics had to say….
Lights, Camera, Prototype!
The final prototype presented a clear solution for adding a social aspect into Netflix’s service. Circling back to Chris’ needs, he is able to Netflix Party with his friends from any place in the world, see their face reactions through live video, and have an organized page for his friend’s recommendations. The design colors and styles stayed within the branding for Netflix, but still created a new exciting element to the service.
Hi-Fi Usability Testing
With a 2-week sprint and the holidays, my team wasn’t able to obtain as many users for our second usability test. Although this challenge, we gained insight into our final prototype design with one user!
The user performed both tasks seamlessly because the improved UX writing made identifying items easy. The user was impressed by the visuals and thought the prototype was nearly identical to the real Netflix application. My team was satisfied with the results and hoped to get more users to test in the future.
What I learned…
“ Working with a design team has its learning curves.”
Although the design results came back with great feedback, there were lots of trials and errors between my team and I. I learned that communication is key and learning how to defend my design decisions is something I can grow in for the future. Nonetheless, I still felt proud of myself throughout this project when I was able to drive my team back to user-focused designs. Having different design styles in a group can be overwhelming; however, I learned highlighting people’s strengths is the best way to work and complement each other’s styles.
“Usability testing can drive your final design to success.”
Through the first round of usability testing, I was able to grow from taking in the feedback suggested by users. It taught me that paying attention to users’ responses can help me when I’m stuck during the visual design and UX writing process. In addition, this reaffirmed to me as a designer how important users are for the design process.
“Our society relies on feeling connected.”
During the development of this project, I realized social interaction has become a necessity for users on many different platforms. This project showed me how social interaction is at the tip of anyone’s fingers through new technology. Moving forward with my future designs, I see how social integration will be important for the success of apps or websites.
NEXT STEPS
Moving forward into the future there are three next steps I would add to the sequel.
I would love to perform more usability testing so the results are more accurate.
While reviewing the case study I noticed the age demographic for the users we interviewed was between 20-30 years old. Therefore, I would be interested to see what the usability testing results would be like with different age groups.
With the success of the WatchParty feature, my team would love to research more on scheduled WatchParty. I think it would be a great way to market Netflix's original tv shows and films, which possibly could increase revenue.