Adding ‘User Reviews’ feature to Netflix iOS app
3rd Case Study at Ironhack’s UX/UI Design Bootcamp
Another intensive but pleasurable week had passed at Ironhack’s — Paris bootcamp in UX/UI Design. And now, it’s time to share my experience. [See my previous case study here.]
This particular challenge, unlike the other two, was to be completed individually, which meant no more benefits of group work. And so, I was personally responsible for every decision but at the same time, I had a full creative freedom. That part was fun!
The goal of this project was to incorporate a new feature into an existing platform based on user needs. First, we had to analyze a highly adopted app and then create a hi-fidelity prototypes that would reflect a path forward based on research, iteration, and testing. We were free to choose any app we wanted. I chose Netflix.
This is a second time I chose Netflix as my design project. The other time was my prework challenge—Wireframing Netflix app. I have to honestly admit, I really love Netflix! I still remember the early days when you would purchase a monthly subscription online, choose a title on their website, and then the movie would be mailed to you in the form of a DVD, along with a prepaid return envelope. You would watch it the same night (or not), and then drop it off in your mailbox the next morning on the way to work. The following day, you would receive another movie title from your wishlist and the process would continue. It was effortless and super convenient to users. No more wasting time going to a movie rental place wondering around the store unable to decide. And when you did finally decide, you realized that this movie is rented out and not currently available. You would come back the next day hoping that you will be lucky this time. Often, that was not the case. So, the Netflix concept of mail-in movies was just brilliant during the times when online streaming was something taken out of a fantasy movie. But that’s how it was. It was early 2000’s and I lived in Florida back then. Fast forward 20 years and online streaming is what most people do now. And even though the growth of stay-at-home and mobile viewers have been on the rise for some time, the Covid-19 Outbreak has given the online streaming market a huge boost. The number of Netflix subscribers increased by about 16 million during the pandemic. Of course, a lot has changed since the early days of Netflix but the fact that it continues to impress for so long has not. How could that be? There are many reasons why Netflix is so great but I think at its core, their secret lies in its creativity and user-centered design. And, in terms of my humble project, trying to add a feature to a platform like Netflix was a challenge in itself.
So, why should Netflix care about User Reviews? First, let’s consider the phenomenon called Netflix Syndrome. It simply refers to users who spend more time looking through the content than actually watching it. Does this sound familiar? It happens to me all the time! When my wife and I put the kids to bed and want to watch a movie on Netflix, we often struggle deciding what film to watch. Of course, the problem is not the choice because there are always a lot of great things to choose, movie recommendations, and different ways to filter the content: films, series, genres, trending now, popular movies, top 10, new this week, etc. The list goes on, and I love how it’s all presented and organized but then how do I actually decide what movie to watch? I can check out a movie trailer (or more often a movie fragment), read a plot summary, look at the cast, and few other things but will it be enough to help me decide? Sometime yes if I know what I want but other times, I need something else, something more subjective, somebody else's opinion like ‘user reviews’. And why are they important? Because they have the power to influence user decisions. Sure, opinions can be biased but to learn someone else point of view can also be very insightful. They can help us see things from a different perspective. Besides, user reviews can encourage user interactions, and that’s great too.
Secondly, users consider online reviews to be important in terms of decision-making and trust them as much as personal recommendations.
Although, this research data relates to Online Reviews in general, I am convinced these numbers would accurately translate into Online Movie Reviews as well. A comparison study would be very helpful here to confirm this.
The next step in the design thinking process was to validate the user reviews feature. I conducted only three interviews but I felt convinced through my external research, that I should go ahead and implement this feature. Another thing, since this was a project to be completed individually with only one week to finish all the work including hi-fidelity prototypes, I wanted to quickly move on to the next stage. What was also important here is that I gain a lot of prototyping practice in Figma. I really needed this to better prepare myself for what was to come in my future projects.
One important interview finding worth mentioning here was that most users, generally watch Netflix on their desktop/laptop screens or TVs, and not so much on mobile devices. This was an important finding and I wanted to find out in what situations they watch Netflix on their phones rather than on larger screens. It turns out that users don’t usually watch movies on their way to work in metro or bus. These trips are too short, and often stressful for users to really focus on a movie plot. During these short trips, users prefer to listen to music, read, check email or look at social media feeds. But longer trips, on the other hand, such as airline flights, train travels, road trips, etc. are very favorable for platforms such as Netflix. These findings helped me create a Proto-Persona, which unlike a user Persona is a non-research driven fictional character.
Next, I wrote a Problem Statement to help me put all this into perspective and to highlight a problem that needs to be addressed.
Then, I’ve created a User Flow Chart to help me map out and visualize a path users will take to make use of this new feature. It helped me preplan what screens to design.
In terms of user flow, it’s important to point out, there needs to be some kind of a mechanism to prevent users from writing reviews about movies they haven’t watched yet on the platform in order to minimize their opinion bias. Right now, I’m not sure what this mechanism should look like but maybe something like unlocking the ‘Add Review’ icon only after watching at least 10 minutes of the film. But again, I haven’t given much thought about this process. It would have to be researched.
Next, I needed to sketch out lo-fidelity screens of the new feature. Here’s a first iteration of these sketches.
Then, after user testing, I converted these sketches into mid-fi wireframes. Here’s a first iteration of these wireframes.
Next, the mid-fi prototype was tested again by users.
Here, I need to point out that before moving on to hi-fi prototyping, these mid-fi screens were slightly redesigned, improved and the flow simplified. These changes were implemented after user testing and are not shown in the above screens. On the other hand, the user flow chart presented above already does show a final design path.
The next step in the design process was to create hi-fi prototype. So, in order to recreate Netflix’s native feel and look, I needed to extract their colors and fonts. To get the colors, I simply used the color picker tool from ColorZilla. Fonts, on the other hand, were much harder to replicate. That’s because in early 2018, Netflix introduced their new custom typeface called Netflix Sans, which is not publically available. So instead, I had to use Helvetica Neue typeface, which somewhat resembles Netflix Sans but to really make it work, I had to constantly readjust letter spacing.
Finally, I had all the elements to create hi-fidelity screens.
I also made a quick video of the hi-fi prototype that you may watch below.
Next steps:
- Conduct large-scale survey of current Netflix users to confirm the desirability of User Reviews feature
- Once confirmed, design a mechanism to reduce user opinion bias
- Conduct hi-fidelity user testing
If you have any questions or would like to discuss your future UX/UI project, connect with me on LinkedIn here.
