Prime Video Usability Study
Redesigning Amazon’s streaming service through user research, to make it more competitive in an industry dominated by Netflix.
Over the last decade, the amount of streaming services available on the Internet, has grown at an exponential rate. Netflix’s dominance has forced the media landscape to shift gears, to better accommodate a generation of consumers, who no longer need to subscribe to cable. Now global media conglomerates are investing billions to acquire and create content for their own video streaming services, in order to get our attention.
Despite all this competition, Netflix has grown their budget for exclusive content from a measly $2.4B in 2013, to $15B as of Q4 2019. To compete against the streaming giant, Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service, reportedly spent $250 million for the television rights of The Lord of the Rings. This is on top of a full five season production commitment of $1 billion, which makes it the most expensive TV series in the history of the medium. Yet despite Amazon’s willingness to spend on content, Prime Video is not only 30 million short Netflix’s 180 million global subscribers, but also comes 5th amongst the world’s most popular video streaming services.
With these facts in mind, I wanted to find ways in which Amazon could compete against Netflix outside of just offering more content, through the following questions:
1. Does more content equate to higher user satisfaction?
2. How do users find content to watch on these streaming services?
3. What are alternative ways of competing for a user’s attention other than more content?
In order to answer these questions, I needed to better understand the needs and context of its subscribers, at the user experience level. This is why I decided to focus on Gen-Z, as they are the most likely generation to have a Netflix subscription as of May 2020 (information was gathered by Statista from users in the US). Using this demographic as my basis, I created a provisional persona to get a better grasp of the potential needs and context, of users within this segment.
USER INTERVIEWS & USABILITY TESTING
Using this provisional user persona as a guide, I scheduled interviews and usability tests with five Gen-Z users. I used Loom to record the reactions of each user, as they went through the Philippine browser-based versions of Netflix and Prime Video. Some of the questions I asked include:
- What kind of device do you use most often?
- What kind of content do you consume with your device?
- How do you find new TV shows/movies to watch?
I then noted down their answers on virtual sticky notes using Figma, and organised them into the affinity map above to get a better sense of each users pain points.
PAIN POINTS
Armed with these insights, I set out to improve the user experience of Prime Video by addressing these three key pain points.
1. “Homepage is cramped and unorganized.”
Users disliked how each row of four cards repeated throughout the homepage, making the experience claustrophobic, and disorienting to scroll through. This was due to the minimal use of white space within the page, coupled with it’s lack of variety specifically in regards to the sizing of each card. They also felt that having four cards for each row felt restrictive, giving them the impression that there was less content on Prime as compared to Netflix.
Users also mentioned that they often relied on the homepage to tell them what to watch next. This is why they were irritated when presented with Amazon Originals immediately upon entering the site, as it felt like they were being marketed to, but not catered to. Rather than Prime Video showing them options for content they might genuinely be interested in, users were being “hard sold” to watch Amazon’s exclusive content instead.
2. “Watchlist isn’t worth using.”
Some of the questions I had asked users involved Watchlist, a feature that enables Prime Video subscribers to save content for later viewing. Many users didn’t seem to bother using their Watchlist at all, even on Netflix (feature is called “My List” on Netflix). On top of that, Prime Video kept Watchlist hidden from the top navigation bar entirely, making all five users struggle with where to find the feature on the homepage. Yet even when users did find it, they noted its lack of organisation and customisability, which could explain why they hardly used the feature to begin with.
3. “There’s no way of recommending content to my friends.”
One common theme between all users was that outside of the homepage, a large majority of content they found was suggested from their friends. Despite these comments, I noticed that there was no social features built directly into Philippine versions of Netflix or Prime Video. Other than posting about a TV show or movie on your social media feeds by using a share button, there was no way to recommend content from within the website itself.
THE REDESIGN
Homepage Presentation
To address the first pain point, I wanted the homepage to not only feel less restrictive, but also better at showing users content relevant to them.
I began by creating five as opposed to four cards for each row, which allowed for more information to fit within the same amount of space. I also made sure to have different sizes of cards spread throughout the page, in order to bring more variety to the repetitive layout present in the previous design.
Since some were bothered by the Amazon Originals, I moved these cards to the bottom, and replaced it with the Continue Watching section. This allowed users to easily return to the content they last viewed, and see exactly where they left via the progress bars below each card. I also pushed the TV Shows/Movie’s we think you’ll like and Recently Added sections further up the page, to prevent users from having to scroll too far down.
My hope is these changes reduced the homepage’s repetitiveness, increased visibility of relevant content, and presented the same amount of information in the same amount of space to retain usability even while scrolling.
Your Watchlist and Friend’s Watchlist
Building on Pain Points 2 and 3, I moved Watchlists to the top navigation bar, and tried to find ways I could integrate friend recommendations into it as well. My goal was to make Watchlists more memorable and compelling to use, especially with friends.
I started by creating a new user flow for Watchlists, while keeping social interaction in mind for every step.
The first tab, called My Watchlists, was where users could organize their TV shows and movies with the help of an overlay menu. This overlay would then enable them to create custom lists of content with their own unique name and description, as seen in the GIF above.
The other section, called the Friend’s Watchlist, helps users track their friends to see what they’re watching at any given time. It also allows them to see their individual friends’ customised Watchlists.
To encourage social interaction, I included a feature called Watch Party into the redesign, which is only present in the beta version of Prime Video in the U.S. Released amid an era of social distancing, Watch Party enables users to chat and view content with up to 100 friends to simulate the feeling of being together. However, there is still no way to add friends directly from the website into a Watch Party, with American users having to use a shareable link instead. This opportunity to bring Prime Video users together for a Watch Party, directly via the website, is what I wanted to build upon for the redesign.
Through the Watch Parties tab, I wanted to highlight unreleased content so users would be encouraged to invite their friends to a Watch Party, when they eventually premiere. Users can also select the content and friends they want to invite through the overlay menu, as again seen in the GIF above.
I also wanted this tab to be where users could receive Watch Party invites from friends. The information conveyed to the user had to include the movie/TV show their friend wanted to watch, his/her name, and the date and time for the Watch Party itself. To reveal this info, users simply hover over any card below the Watch Party Invites section, at the bottom of the page.
KEY TAKEAWAYS AND LEARNINGS
Taking a step back, let’s review the three questions I asked at the beginning of the case study.
1. Does more content equate to higher user satisfaction?
2. How do users find content to watch on these video streaming services?
3. What are alternative ways of competing for a user’s attention other than more content?
Based on my findings, users do not enjoy the experience of endlessly scrolling through rows of content, only to find something they’re ambivalent about watching. No matter how much time they have, its unlikely users will watch every single movie and TV show available on a streaming service. So in the long run, I believe adding more content will only give diminishing returns over time.
This is why these services should have an element of curation, as most people have difficulty making decisions, when presented with too many options. Integrating friends within these video streaming services is vital, as relying only on an algorithm for recommendations may be difficult for users with increasing amounts of content to choose from.
So while the average user may agree that content is king, the way in which this content is presented, tends to be vastly overlooked. As streaming matures, I believe their will come a time wherein media conglomerates can no longer rely on exclusive content as their main selling point, as that is already expected.
This is why Amazon’s resources would be better off building personalised curation and social media integration, rather than spending billions on the next Game of Thrones. With that said, if current video streaming services want to stand a chance against Netflix, it might be time to invest less on content, and more on the user experience.
