Another Unsolicited YouTube Redesign

“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work.” — C. S. Lewis​

TL;DR: According to a 2018 pew study, 87% of adult Americans say that they utilize YouTube when learning something new. Using Elam Agam’s “lean service design” framework, I attempt to improve YouTube’s educational capabilities by reducing distraction.

How many times have you gone to learn something
on YouTube and ended up wasting hours on
unrelated content?​

This is one of the first questions I asked people when conducting user interviews. I wanted to see if I was the only one who got distracted by entertaining, but irrelevant content, while using YouTube as an educational platform. As it turns out, this was a fairly universal problem. And with online education on the rise, I saw a huge opportunity for YouTube to corner the market here as well.

A few observations:​

According to a November 2018 Pew study a full 87% of users say that the site is important for them when they are learning something new.

• 51% say that the above is very important to them.
• 64% percent of users say that they they at least sometimes encounter videos that seem obviously false or untrue while using the site.
• A quick Google search for how not to get distracted while studying online will tell you to block YouTube and Netflix.
• People also complain about YouTube’s lack of interactivity while learning new things.
• With all this in mind, I decided to talk to some target users, in order to decide which problem to tackle.

Personas:​

I started out my process by interviewing several target users about their YouTube habits and ended up making 3 personas including my primary user persona named “Josh.” Josh is a film student who uses YouTube to supplement his traditional classes. His main frustration is the vast amount of content available. It is difficult to weed out the “wheat from the chaff” and Josh finds that he frequently gets distracted by entertaining, but irrelevant content. He wishes there was a way to temporarily block non-educational content. Throughout the process I would refer back to this persona to see if my solution fit his needs.

Identifying opportunities:

I mapped out the user’s flow to see how I could improve their journey to help them reach their most important goals with the product. While looking at the flow, I saw that the biggest issue for Josh had to do with loosing focus. He tended to open a large number of tabs and after downsizing his selection, he’d usually end up taking a break and not studying effectively.

Ideation:

I started my ideation phase by brainstorming ideas and putting them on a graph to check that they were both effective and efficient. I came up with several ideas including a timed auto shutoff, a virtual assistant, a separate study platform, etc. I decided to go with a radio button (see below) which would switch between a “regular” and “focus” mode. My hope is that this will introduce a little more friction so that our user, who is interested in studying, can get that little extra help and not get distracted.

My answer? Focus mode:

Focus mode consists of removing all non educational content from view.
When you are in “focus mode,” your recommended videos and search
results will only contain educational material as defined below.

Try the prototype out

UI design:

I decided to try a toggle switch but that left me with a big question. Would people know what the switch was for, when it says “Regular”?

Toggle switch concept for focus mode. Note that when you’re in a video you can’t switch modes. I also removed the auto-play toggle when in “focus” mode.

Biggest question I still need to answer: Does this cause enough friction in order to avoid distraction?

Next steps:​

I wasn’t able to test the prototype in accurate conditions, but if I were running this for YouTube, I would introduce this button to some sample users and check that they understood the button’s use, found it useful, and actually kept them focused.

Problems I still need to overcome in the education space:

• How would we help educators control access to YouTube in a classroom setting?
• How do we signal the highest quality content educational quickly to our users?
• How do we integrate interactivity to maximize retention of information?

If you enjoyed this case study and are looking for a designer who will bring fresh ideas, a human centered approach and a unique perspective I invite you to reach out.