YouTube Concept: Improving the “Toxic” Comments Section
I chose to reinvent the “toxic” comments section of Youtube. This is my process…
Thinking about the Problem
Youtube has become the world’s largest video-sharing site. Its strengths are its large user base and video database. But, the platform has some drawbacks.
I have personally found a disconnect within the comments section. Comments just aren’t impactful the larger the YouTube channel becomes, and individuals do not have a voice in giving feedback.
My initial problem hypothesis:
When I finish watching a video, I want to give feedback to content creators, so I can influence future videos.
But, I can’t do that well because:
- I don’t always feel like writing a comment.
- YouTubers may not have time to go through all comments.
- Likes/dislikes and top comments limit feedback.
Understanding How People Interact with Youtube
User Research
I interviewed five people with very different preferences. My goal was to understand how they interact with Youtube and their pain points with the experience.
Most of my interviewees were passive viewers and college students, but I interviewed one outlier, a 14-year-old who posts her own cartoon animations on Youtube. The college students watched videos consistently, but had limited interaction with channels and did not comment on videos.
Below are the summarized attitudes:
Key Insights:
- Even though people have strong preferences on the videos they like and dislike, they rarely hit like/dislike or write a comment.
- People value good content and like indicators that show a video will be worth watching.
- People dislike “toxic” and spam comments.
- People believe YouTube comments not a place for fruitful discussion.
Revisiting the Problem
I adjusted my initial problem statement to reflect my new insights:
People have strong opinions on what makes good content and like gaging the quality of a video by other viewers’ opinions. But, the current Youtube comment system doesn’t paint a full picture, and people don’t feel compelled to use or view the comment section.
Ideation
For my brainstorming session, I recruited five of my friends — Nikhil Ranganathan, Sarah Dickerman, Madeline Ugarte, Logan Altheim and Drew Dunne. We aimed to find a multitude of solutions that would solve the problem.
We started with two “How might we” questions and three solution spaces to guide our brainstorm session.
- How might Youtube enhance the comment community interaction?
- How might Youtube give/get more useful feedback to creators?
Solution Spaces: Comment Improvements, Community Improvements, Personalization Improvements
Choosing the Feature to Iterate On
I decided to create a “Subscriber-Only” comment section.
This section would create an exclusive space for fans of the channel to have discussions and express genuine praise and criticism.
My feature is effective because it integrates self-moderation by targeting subscribers. These users would be most interested in the channel’s content and success. It would separate committed fans from internet trolls.
It would further build a community and is a simple way to filter out hateful and spam comments.
Besides the exclusivity of a separate section, I wanted to create incentives for people to switch to the subscriber-only section.
I chose to focus on discussion threads and loyalty badges.
Exploring Discussion Threads
I first explored the idea of creating discussion threads in the comments section. This concept would draw inspiration from discussion sites such as Quora and Reddit.
The logic behind adding Discussion Threads
- Threads can filter out the important discussions vs spam. Subscribers can downvote low-quality discussions and upvote high-quality discussions. Discussions with a higher thumbs-up to thumbs-down ratio will be more visible.
- Discussion threads can bring about more interesting discussions
Sketches and Inspiration
Medium Fidelities
I moved on to medium fidelities and tested out the concept with fellow YouTube users. The entry point into the subscriber-only section would be within the comments. I changed the thumbs up and thumbs down icons to arrows to visibly show that the comment would move down/up based on user votes.
User Testing
After initial user tests, I found the following insights:
- While people were excited about having a separate comments section, they were unsure if “discussions” would add much value.
- The quick and ephemeral nature of the comments section may be contradictory to long-form discussions.
- People want to be more engaged but aren’t sure how.
These problems led me to create more iterations to observe how users behave with different concepts. I wanted to see if there was a different way for users to interact with the subscriber comments…
Exploring Loyalty Badges
I explored how the use of gamification would motivate users to be active in the comments section.
The logic behind adding a loyalty badge system
- Digital badges or awards are a simple approach to keep users engaged and interested.
- It promotes regular usage of the comments section.
- Receiving awards based on the quality + quantity of comments can motivate subscribers to write insightful comments often and thus prompt continuous usage of the subscriber comments section.
Medium Fidelity Iterations
1) Subscriber groups where subscribers of that particular creator receive a badge based on the level of activity in the channel’s comment section; Users would be more motivated to be long-term subscribers and have a greater level of activity over time.
2) A rewards system where users with most likes, most replies, greatest engagement overall, best reply, etc. receive an “award” for the video. Users would be more motivated to write better, more engaging comments.
After my user testing, I found that my first loyalty badge concept was more successful, and I decided to refine it for my final iteration.
High Fidelity Prototyping
Looking Forward
Implications of My Design
Dependent on Engineering: The comments section is dependent on back-end programming in addition to the UX/UI design. So for my design to be implemented, I will have to work with software engineers to further understand the Youtube algorithm and which comments get pushed up to the top. I will also need to understand the feasibility of creating a badge system.
Testing is dependent on large user base: My app design is also limited in its user testing because for the comments section to fully function, there has to be a large number of users using the subscriber section together. I would need to observe how other users interact with each other in the new feature.
Will the public comments section be full of toxic messages?: This was a question I thought about throughout the process. It is something I would definitely like to consider later on, with more testing. While there will be a tradeoff, I believe this additional functionality will allow users to filter the comments and interactions they want to see.
Reflection
This 7-week long journey was my first experience creating a full product case study. I am very happy with the design thinking skills I gained from creating a new app feature. I learned that sometimes simple solutions can fix larger issues.
I’d like to thank everyone I did interviews with, my course critique group, and the AppDev team.
If you have any feedback, please let me know! Comment below or email me at avg37@cornell.edu.
