Background
The pandemic has changed the way people use streaming platforms. Many have felt the need to stay connected to their loved ones by watching movies and TV shows together. Netflix’s competitors, such as Disney+ and Prime Video, both offer ‘group viewing’: this feature allows users to watch a programme remotely with their friends and family and to chat and react simultaneously.
Challenge
How Might We help Netflix users watch movies and shows remotely with their friends and family?
— Research
Brand Research
Let’s talk a little about Netflix.
Netflix was created in 1997 and is the most popular streaming app right now, with 203.66 million subscribers and an increase of 16 millions during Covid.
Netflix’s users spend around 1 billion hours per week streaming content. Due to the pandemic and people staying at home, Netflix climbed from $298.84 to $360.27 in only 7 days (source Forbes).
Competitors Research
But despite the popularity, Netflix has 3 main competitors: Amazon Prime Video, Disney + and HBO OCS.
Between the 3, Prime Video seems to be the biggest threat to Netflix, with 150 millions subscribers, a large catalog and exclusive content.
Feature Analysis
To know more about the market and Netflix’s competitors, I conducted a Feature Analysis. The major advantage Prime Video & Disney + both have over Netflix is the groupwatch feature, that allows users to watch programs with their friends and family remotely.
User Research
I continued to do research, this time focusing on the users. I conducted 5 remote user interviews. I wanted to know their habits with Netflix, how often they use the app, what they enjoy, dislike and what they would love to see there.
All of the interviewees are regular Netflix users and have no problem using the platform. They find it easy to navigate and they love the large catalog and exclusive content it offers.
3 out of 5 interviewees said they use Netflix almost everyday, even if they don’t end up watching anything, they go on the app.
Finally, 60% of the interviewees have complained about the lack of groupwatch. Among other features, the groupwatch was proposed by 3 of them.
— Define
Affinity Diagram
I organized my findings in an Affinity Diagram and divided everything in three categories: users’ gains, users’ pains and users’ goals. From there, I decided to focus on designing a Netflix Party feature so users can stream and react to a program simultaneously with their friends or family.
Proto Persona
It became apparent who the users of this new feature would be and why they would need it. So I moved to making a proto persona to better reflect their actual needs and frustrations.
Meet Caleb.
Caleb is a 26 years old Art Director in the video games industry, from Manchester. He recently moved to Paris for work. He is a horror fan and wants to keep watching horror movies and tv shows with his friends, despite the new distance between them.
User Journey Map
Through the lens of Caleb, I created a User Journey Map to understand how he and his friends proceed to watch programs together on Netflix.
Scenario:
Caleb is new in Paris. All of his friends still live in Manchester. Due to work, they don’t have much time to call each other. So tonight, they decided to watch a Netflix movie together. But how will they manage?
1- First they prepare everything via Whatsapp.
2- When everyone is ready, they countdown to try to start the movie at the same time.
3- Obviously it’s not working well and due to time lag, someone ends up reacting to a scene ahead of the others and spoils everything.
4- Movie night is ending on that annoying note.
Problem Statement
So what can we do to help Caleb and his friends?
All this research got me to this problem statement and I wrote a clear and concise description of the issue that needs to be addressed. This helped me define the project’s main objective further:
Netflix’s Users want a way to watch movies and TV shows remotely with their friends or family so that they can share time and activities together even when far away from each other.
Finally, to brainstorm functionalities for this feature and find opportunities, I came up with 3 How Might We:
How Might We help users watch movies and shows remotely with their friends and family?
How Might We help improve the feature so that every user can interact with each other during the show?
How Might We help users know when their watch party is planned and/or about to start?
— Ideate
Brainstorming
I brainstormed with myself (thankfully we agreed quite quickly) and decided to focus on creating a Netflix Party immediately and the possibility to chat with friends/family during the show.
User Flow
Then comes the user flow, and all the steps the user will have to go through to create a Netflix Party and watch and react with friends, from opening the app to closing the app.
This really helped me see more clearly what screens and functionalities I need to come up with (and where!) to make this feature as user friendly as possible.
— Prototypes
Low-Fidelity Wireframe and User Testing
I first created a low-fidelity wireframe that I tested with 5 users.
After the testings, there were 2 main pain points:
- The first one was the solution I found to invite people to the party: entering everyone’s emails is tedious plus you need to actually know all their emails.
- The second one was the chat functionality, and how it needs to push the movie screen instead of coming on top of it.
Atomic Design
Before jumping to the mid-fidelity wireframe, I created an Atomic Design of the Netflix mobile app.
By breaking down the app and it’s components, I was able to see which one will I need to reuse the most for the new feature in the next steps.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframe
OK, we’re getting somewhere! It’s time for the mid-fidelity wireframe.
Following the user flow and taking into account the feedback from the previous users testing, I created my mid-fidelity wireframe with the components made during the Atomic Design inventory.
High Fidelity Prototype
Finally, I am happy to share with you the high-fidelity prototype I created for the Netflix Party feature. I’ve tried to keep my decisions based on the original Netflix’s Style Guide so that the new feature would fit perfectly to the app.
We meet again with Caleb, who’s logging into his account. He wants to plan a Netflix Party for his friends and himself. He chooses the tv show, and then creates a Netflix Party. He arrives on the “waiting room”. Before sending invites, he is told that he can only invite 6 people and they need an active Netflix account to participate.
Once he invited everyone, he can see in the lobby who accepted the invite and can start the show.
During the show he can chat with his friend by clicking on the chat icon. If he exists the party, he goes back to the lobby where he can resume the show where his friends are.
And here’s a mockup view of the star of the show:
— Next Steps
So what’s next? There is still so much I want to do with this feature, but among other things I would love to add the possibility to create a Netflix Party for a later time. Users would be able to choose a date, send invites, save the date to their calendar and activate notifications to know when the next Party is planned.
I would also like to add a chat in the lobby room so users can interact with each other before the show and say when they’re ready.
Finally, I want to adapt that feature so that users can watch on a TV screen and use the mobile app to chat.
— What I learned
During this week, it was my first time working alone on a full project.
I really enjoyed the process, as it allowed me to really test my knowledge and skills and see how well I can manage by myself. But it also made me realize how crucial it is to have regular feedback and mentorship, especially when you’re learning.
I also found myself googling a lot and was happy to see such an incredible community of UX/UI designers, putting content out there for free and sometimes on their free time!
I hope you enjoyed reading my case study! See you next time!
