UX Benchmarking: Content Discovery on Video Streaming Apps

It may not be an exaggeration to say that the biggest challenge before OTT’s like Hotstar, Netflix etc. is reduction of content discovery time. The faster users can get to the content they like, the more likely they are to stay on. According to the How tech will transform content discovery report published by PWC (November 2017)

Users do not know what they want to watch 42% * of the time

Why are content discovery experiences bad?

The search for relevant content is often a failure and is an unfortunate consequence of bad content discovery experiences.

According to a recent UX Benchmarking research conducted by @PeepalDesign (Sample size of 20 OTT app users), Content discovery is largely a process that leaves most users confused & dissatisfied.

Figure 1

1. Related content was not very useful. This was true across most platforms. Most users found suggested content (You may also like) was not related to their mood, their viewing habits or even last video watched. For example, what is the connection between Pink and Mission Mangal, Badhaai Ho & Super 30 in this instance?!

2. Users often point out the absence of content filtering (language, genre etc.) as a common issue. In this instance how does a user filter out sports and regional language content!

Figure 2

3. Clear categorisation by language, type of content (Movies, TV Shows, genres, audience segments) when offered, was much appreciated.

Figure 3

How do some of the large OTT players stack up on Content Discovery?

Figure 4

The UX benchmarking study collected a wide variety of metrics to measure the experience delivered by these platforms. The baseline UX metrics that we measured are as follows,

1. Task completion rate: Did the user get to her goal? How well does the platform fulfilling the user’s goal of finding good content
2. Ease of Use: How easy was it? We used a ‘Single ease question’
3. Net Promoter Score (NPS): A overall measure of the customer loyalty

The one metric we are missing from Forrester CX Pyramid is the enjoyable to use rating. which we ended up measuring at the product level.

This layered approach enables us to pinpoint the key factors that impact the customer loyalty/ retention measure provided by NPS and enables us to take corrective action. For instance if we look at the Platform 4 (Figure 4) it is clear that the poor ‘task completion rate’ is resulting in poor customer retention as indicated by the NPS score.

Reference: For a more detailed read of the CX Pyramid read Measure CX Performance: Looking Beyond Net Promoter Score, at Usabilla

Netflix leads the pack on Content Discovery

1. Netflix has a great reputation among users for making content discovery really easy. New content based on viewing habits is pushed to the top.
2. The app automatically queues up more content under ‘Watch Next’ as you are finishing up a movie or show. Users appreciate this option to seamlessly transition to new related content.
3. Users like the ‘You may also like’ section as it helps them discover content suited to their tastes with ease.

“I think Netflix is better at showing similar movies. If I watch romcoms, I will get only romcom suggestions.. But here you find comedy, love story etc.”

Female, 20 years, SEC A, Regular Hotstar user

The Future: Supercharged ‘You May Also Like’

80% of customers want to watch something that matches their mood.

• The recommendation system of the future needs to take into consideration much more than users viewing habits to come up with more appropriate recommendations. Increased integration with social media to detect mood may not be far into the future
• Increase users trust in the recommendations, for example providing details about critics ratings & reviews? Reasons behind the ratings? Extracting key words for instance was it Fun, Boring, Thoughtful, Intense etc.

If you keen to know the other key insights from the UX Benchmarking Report of OTT platforms. Drop a line in the comments and we will send you a copy.