Netflix

Mobile App Feature Concept

Overview

Netflix is an American subscription-based streaming service that has been experiencing a monumental surge with users due to the pandemic, 72% increase in average weekly usage to be exact. However, Netflix has been canceling shows early due to their fear of those shows underperforming.

Me and my team were challenged to reconfigure the current platform to increase viewership with any underperforming content.

Timeline: 2 week sprint

Team: Carmelle, Chris, Elena, Leo

Tools: Figma, Marvel App, Miro, and Sketch

Platform: Native mobile app

 

Final Product

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The Main Problem

Netflix Original Shows are underperforming. Netflix has been canceling shows early due to their fears of those shows underperforming. Due to the pandemic, their user needs’ and expectations have changed and they want their app to adapt accordingly. They believe adding social features will help increase viewership with any underperforming content.

 

A Little Dose of Healthy Competition

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Getting to Know our Users

My team and I created a survey to recruit our target users. Upon talking to these Netflix enthusiasts, we quickly realized they felt trapped within Netflix’s algorithm and were not exposed to the vast content the platform offered.

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User Criteria

Movie & Show Enthusiasts

Our users were recruited based on the amount of hours they watch Netflix

Avid Social Media Users

Each user uses social media about 3.4 times/day

Young Adults

Our users ranged from ages 24-30

 
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Get Me Out of This Bubble!

After spending a few hours organizing and synthesizing the data from the interviews, it became clear to us that our users didn’t feel exposed to all the content Netflix has to offer. In addition, they also enjoyed discussing and recommending shows with their peers.

The Revised Problem: Viewers Want to be Exposed

Users need a way to discover and share new shows with friends so that they can break out of their current viewing bubble.

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Let’s Get to Swiping

Our team conducted a design session to ideate some potential features to help Max solve his problem. We decided to create a “My Pod” page where users can view their friends’ Watch Lists. In addition, we implemented a swiping gesture, that would enable users to quickly and easily find new shows and/or movies.

The swiping feature is an algorithm that basically takes your friends’ shows and aggregates them into a shuffled pile.

Once we established a clear direction, we allotted 30 minute time-blocks for design studios.

Pictured, we have low-fidelity sketches that incorporate the new Flix Swipe feature as well as the “My Pod” page. We took these out to the field but found some major issues...

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1. Users didn’t understand why there were two separate sections with circles in the “My Pod” page

2. The users were asked to add a movie to their list but immediately went to the plus sign on the top right, and were taken to the “Add Friends” screen.

3. Users were overall confused and found the homepage overwhelming. They were also unsure of how to add movies to their lists based on what their friends were watching.

4. The Flix Swipe feature was also too small

We Empathized With Our Users and Tried Again

These tests highlighted many issues with our design but that motivated us even more. We took out the top row of circles which were the current shows a user’s friends were watching, enlarged Flix Swipe, and changed the “Friend’s Lists” to “Watch Lists”.

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“’My Pod’ sounds like a place to watch movies with friends...”

Users were confused with what the “My Pod” feature was and didn’t think it resonated well with the concept we were striving for which was to have a page to explore content your friends are watching.

People didn’t quite understand what the Flix Swipe feature was so we decided to take out the navigation bar and make the entire screen a short clip. We hoped this change would clarify that users need to swipe left and right.

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Despite All These Changes, Users Were Still Confused With Flix Swipe

“How do I get out of here? I feel trapped!”

Upon conducting the user testing for the high- fidelity, users liked the concept of Flix Swipe, but just did NOT understand how to use it. One user even bypassed the entire feature!

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Our Users Like Feeling a Sense of Connection During These Difficult Times

To focus on the MVP, the “Friend” page was an ideal place to elaborate and develop more, so FlixSwipe was taken out. This change was critical since our users were confused with the feature but wanted a place to collaborate and share content with friends.

We needed to create a clear and intuitive way to introduce this new feature into the app.

“Bringing people together during times of quarantine”

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Reflection

This project was incredibly challenging, fun, and eye-opening. We learned the value of the MVP and how the vision we had for our app based on our users could be changed drastically after rounds of tests.

We solved the issue of users feeling stuck in a bubble by designing a page dedicated to viewing what their friends are watching which helps them discover new shows that might not be in their algorithm.

For next steps, we would want to conduct more usability tests and iterate to ensure these new changes bring ease and a sense of togetherness to our users during these difficult times.

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UX Design Lead @ Knac | B2B Data-Driven Platform