Netflix
Adding a social feature to Netflix.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Timeline: August 2022
Role: UX/UI Designer
Background
In today’s modern world, choosing which entertainment platform(s) to pay for each month can be a tough decision, and choosing what to watch or stream within that platform can be even more overwhelming. We are presented with a plethora of different kinds of media every day, and it can be hard to choose a show or movie to invest time into. Netflix, one of the world’s largest subscription service companies that specializes in streaming movies and TV episodes over the Internet, does well in providing subscribers with a vast range of media, but it can be hard to decide what to watch based on the platform’s ratings and what Netflix recommends. Some of those choices may not match users’ preferences, and ratings can often be biased. Incorporating a community-based feature within Netflix can allow subscribers to see what their friends and community are currently choosing to watch, and allows for an interactive element to the platform.
Objective
Add an interactive feature to Netflix, in which subscribers can find and add other users, as well as see what others are watching, which shows or movies others have liked, an option to watch with their friends, what is on each added friend’s watchlist, and/or any other feature that users would like to see, based on user research.
Audience
Users who have a Netflix subscription, either past or current, and users who are considering subscribing to Netflix. Users who have subscriptions to other streaming platforms such as Hulu, HBOMAX, Amazon Prime, and Disney+.
MARKET RESEARCH
Competitor Analysis
Market Analysis
Key insights on streaming platforms with a built-in watch-party function:
Watch parties primarily utilize chat features for communication between users, and Sling is the only one, or one of the few out there, that utilize a video chat function.
Watch party invitations are shared via links, and none of the competitors I studied enable a within-platform sharing feature. There are usually a limited number of participants allowed within the watch party, with the exception of Amazon Prime Video, which allows up to 100 people.
Watch party functions are mostly compatible with most internet browsers, as well as smart TVs and mobile devices, based on the compatibility of the parent platform.
Key insights on 3rd party watch-party plugins and extensions:
Two main ways that users have watched content together is sharing their screen through Zoom and installing Netflix Party, a 3rd party Google Chrome extension.
Unlike most built-in watch-party functions, Zoom allows users to share both their video screens and utilize a chat function. However, this can present some sound overlap if users are speaking.
Netflix Party, now known as Teleparty and can be used across many streaming platforms, presents similar capabilities to built-in watch-parties on platforms.
USER RESEARCH
EMPATHIZE & DEFINE
User Persona
Empathy Map
Task Flows
User flow
IDEATE
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
UI Style Kit
High-Fidelity Wireframes
USER TESTING
Prototype
First flow:
View their friend list and potentially add people that they have not yet connected with.
View their friend’s watch lists, which Netflix users can create. These lists are automatically public unless users specify or create a private list.
Connect their contacts, either through email, phone number, or both. This information is readily available from the user’s account and billing information, and can be edited.
Manage their profile, allowing them to customize not only their profile icon (already built into Netflix), but also change their profile header, which appears on their profile.
Second flow:
Find a show or movie (in this case, the show Bojack Horseman), click on it to expand the content, and start a watch party.
Users are able to customize their watch party by giving it a name, selecting the number of participants, and changing audio and playback settings.
Users can invite others by copying the link to share, sharing it via social media and/or text message if connected to iOS iMessage, and invite friends within the platform. Invitations will appear in the user’s Netflix notification panel.
To join a watch party, users can enter their name and customize their video settings.
User Testing
Based on my user testing data, we see that many of these tasks do not take users much time to complete, with the exception of prototyping error. Due to users not remembering the task instructors or not expanding the panel to view task instructions, misclick rates were high.
FINAL DESIGN - full Figma file
Conclusion
What I Learned
Be one step ahead of the user
The one major part that threw my user testing off was that testers could not find the TV show that I instructed them to search for on the homepage, and didn’t remember the steps that they needed to take to complete a task. Maze.co makes it very easy to run usability tests, but the instruction side panel was hidden for some users. Moderated tests may be more helpful, and perhaps including a search function within the prototype could have solved this issue.
Established brands are not always perfect
I had included an existing element in my wireframes: the user’s name and user profile icon in the top right hand corner of the page, which Netflix also includes in their design to notify users of which account profile they are currently in. This confused many testers when they were trying to manage their profile. This may not be an issue when users are within Netflix, since it doesn’t show up as a clickable item, but it was misleading in my prototype. I also found that users were not used to seeing this while in Netflix, since not many users would navigate to this page that allows them to customize profiles. This element could be taken out to eliminate confusion, since users are not able to interact with it anyway.
Next Steps & Evaluating Success
Watch parties can potentially be expanded to include other features, and formatted and designed to be compatible on other devices. I designed this to fit desktops, since many desktops have built-in keyboards and cameras. This could potentially be adapted to work on a smart TV or a mobile device, but some features, such as the chat feature, may have to be eliminated or changed.
The success of this watch party function could be evaluated by analyzing how many users utilize this feature each week or month. This could also be evaluated based on content - which shows or movies do users start a watch party for the most? This could inform Netflix on which content works best for this function and which do not. Feedback within the app could also be gathered after users exit a watch party. Users could rate the success of their party and the survey results could be further analyzed.