UX Research Report: In-depth with Disney+ Hotstar: Family Streaming Movie App
Hello Everyone! My name is Sherine, currently, I’m studying UI/UX at dibimbing.id. Together with my teammates, Anissa J Utami & Harits Sudharsono Mozart , we decided to conduct in-depth UX research about Disney+ Hotstar mobile application. Without further ado, let us take you to see our research results.
Overview
In this case study, we conduct research on a video streaming service platform named Disney+ Hotstar. Disney+ Hotstar is an Indian brand owned by Novi Digital Entertainment of Disney Star and operated by Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution, both divisions of The Walt Disney Company.
We want to increase the subscribers of Disney+ Hotstar by implementing a reminder feature on the app, so we conduct research on their behavior when using the feature, pain points, and their needs. We did a survey and in-depth interview with the existing subscriber of Disney+ Hotstar, there are 4 main problems we found:
1. No notification feature on the app, so the user doesn’t know about the latest show or reminder about the user favorite’s show.
2. No advanced parental control, so children can easily access mature content.
3. Confusing layout, no user personalized feature that showed the movie highlight and that makes the user confused while selecting a movie to watch.
4. No movie info (cast, genre, synopsis) at the movie preview, instead it automatically auto play the full movie, which is kind of annoying for some users.
After all, we decided to solve the issues, such as:
1. Adding app notification reminder feature so the user won’t miss his/her favorite show or the latest show.
2. Advance parental control that required some password or double verification, so the children can’t easily access mature content.
3. New layout design for Home and movie selection page, that includes highlights of latest and most watched movies.
4. Add movie info and play movie button, so the user can decide whether he/she will watch the movie or not after reading the movie info.
The process: Research plan
Background
Disney+ Hotstar is one of the video streaming service platform that launched in Indonesia in September 2020. The content itself is mostly limited series and originally licensed by Disney, in addition, there are many exclusive series from Indonesia, Korean series & movies, and Japanese anime. With over 50,1 million subscribers in the world (per May 2022), Disney+ Hotstar clearly is one of the leading video streaming platforms these days. Since there are many choices to stream video on demand, Disney+ Hotstar needs to upgrade the feature to increase the number of subscribers.
My team and I want to understand the behavior of the users while using Disney+ Hotstar app by conducting a survey and in-depth interviews with existing Disney+ Hotstar subscribers to validate the necessity of the reminder feature.
Objective
- Understand user’s behavior when using the Disney+ Hotstar
- Understand user’s pain points when using the Disney+ Hotstar
- Understand user’s needs that haven’t been fulfilled on Disney+ Hotstar
- Understand user’s expectations on Disney+ Hotstar
Methodology
- Quantitative — Survey: to gather all of the basic information and the behavior of the respondent. In this method, we also collect the data of the users who are interested in being interviewed.
- Qualitative — In-depth Interview: to elaborate on respondents’ points and can answer based on their complete knowledge, feeling, and understanding about Disney+ Hotstar.
Timeline: 2 Weeks (10 Days)
- Kick-off meeting (1 day)
- Research planning + discussion guide (1 day)
- Recruitment for the survey (3 days)
- Content analysis + recruitment in-depth interview (2 days)
- Interview process + content analysis + report (3 days)
Sample specification
We interviewed the existing users of Disney+ Hotstar and also a subscriber on different platforms.
Specification:
- Watching on Disney+ Hotstar at least once a week
- Based in Indonesia
- Men and women
- Age 18–55
Quantitative — Survey Result
- Disney+ Hotstar User Ages:
2. Disney+ Hotstar User Occupations:
3. How many times user watch Disney+ Hotstar in a week (in Average):
4. How many times users spend times watching Disney+ Hotstar in a day (in Average):
5. Disney+ Hotstar User preference genre of the film:
6. How well do you know about Disney+ Hotstar film update?
7. Another platform that is also subscribed by Disney+ Hotstar users:
Qualitative — In-Depth Interview
Our group conducted qualitative research in the form of interviews on the topics:
- The behavior of the user while watching a film using Disney+ Hotstar
- The weakness of Disney+ Hostar and what users expect to improve
- The goals to be completed from Disney+ Hotstar weakness
And here are some questions that will be asked during the In-Depth Interview session:
- Where do you know about Disney+ Hotstar?
- Are you using any other streaming platform besides Disney+ Hostar?
- What makes you choose Disney+ Hotstar as one of your movie streaming platforms?
- How often do you use Disney+ Hotstar to watch your favorite movies?
- What kind of show do you usually watch on Disney+ Hotstar?
- How often do you miss your favorite show on Disney+ Hotstar?
- How updated are you about the latest show on the Disney+ Hotstar app?
- Is there any existing feature on Disney+ Hotstar app that need to be upgraded or renewed?
- Is there any new feature that you want to add to Disney+ Hotstar app?
- Is it possible for you to recommend the Disney+ Hotstar app to your family or friends?
Based on the interview questions above, our group concluded that the user’s experience and feelings were satisfied enough with Disney+ Hotstar. However, there are several resolutions that respondents expect such as clearer title grouping of the genre, no parental control in-app, and the user wants a better user interface.
Affinity Diagram
After we conducted a survey and an in-depth interview with the participants, we made an affinity diagram so we can easily understand the data. Here are some of our findings:
Disney+ Hotstar Users Behavior:
- Most of the users used Disney+ Hotstar apps only when there is a specific show they like. For example, there is a K-Drama that can only be found in Disney+ Hotstar app.
- While the other users said that they don’t really use Disney+ Hotstar apps often because they prefer to wait and hold the series until the episode finished then they will binge watch it so they don’t need to wait for the series continuation.
- Some active users use this app everyday and spend about 6–8 hours a day using Disney+ Hotstar apps to watch his/her favorite shows.
- Otherwise, some of them use Disney+ Hotstar apps only during weekends, 3–4 times a week.
Pain Points:
- No notification/ reminder from the app, so some users often missed the latest or his/her favorite shows.
- Some users (especially parents with kids) are concerned about parental control, because they found out that children can easily access some mature content.
- The movie selection itself is kind of confusing the user. No user personalized features that show movie highlights and recommended shows based on the user’s watching genre.
- Some users like to decide whether they will watch the movies or not based on the movie info and it’s kind of bothering them because there’s no movie info (cast, genre, synopsis) to read and the preview autoplay full movie feature is bothersome.
Needs:
- App notification for show reminders or info about the newest show, so users will be notified and aware.
- Advance parental control required some password or double verification, so the children can’t easily access mature content. The parents can control what their children can watch and will be notified if their children tried to breach the password to access mature content.
- More clear layout to highlight the newest show and recommended show, based on user personality.
- Add movie info and play button, so the user can decide whether he/she wants to watch the movie after checking the movie info.
Results
- User Persona
Based on the collected data, a user persona was formed to represent each user’s needs.
Customer Journey Map
Conclusion
From the result of this research study, it can be seen that the user comes from a different background and tends to choose Disney+ Hotstar as one of their options to watch movies. Users choose Disney+ Hotstar because its originally licensed by Disney and produce limited series that are only available on Disney+ Hotstar, which is also famous for kids-friendly movies. Therefore, Disney+ Hotstar should be the right choice for a young family to spend their time together.
Several things users expect to improve from the app are more advanced parental control so the kids won’t easily access the mature content, improvement on layouts of the user interface (especially on the homepage), and the grouping of movie genres so the user can search for the right movie without hassle. However, due to the presence of another competitor of another movie streaming platform, the user also wants Disney+ Hotstar to have an app notification or reminder to inform the user for any updates on new shows, trending movies, or movie recommendations, so the user won’t miss any information. Besides, there are simple things that annoy user so much, such as the random color theme they got, between dark and light. Users with one account but log in to more than 1 device find inconsistencies in the color theme.
Thank you for reading our first research on Disney+ Hotstar. Hope you enjoy reading it, as we enjoy doing our research. Cheers!
