Netflix Connect: A Case Study
Netflix Connect is a conceptual product that allows you to share the movie watching experience with friends and loved ones while staying safe and socially distanced.
Let’s Talk About Netflix
Netflix is subsciption based, a multi-platform streaming service that allows its users to view select movies and TV shows without commercials as long as they have access to the internet and a device to view from. With its 221 million subscribers, Netflix is currently the most popular streaming service available, followed by Amazon Prime (175 million subscribers), Crunchyroll (120 million subscribers), and Disney+ (118 million subscribers).
So if Netflix already has the most subscribers, what’s there to worry about?
Problem 1: There’s no built-in party view
Netflix has no built-in party view feature. Since the onset of the COVID-19 virus and increased social distancing, feelings of loneliness, isolation, and depression have been at all-time highs. Users need a way to continue to watch movies and shows with their loved ones while staying safe and socially distanced. Competitors such as Prime Video, Disney+, and Hulu already include this feature.
Problem 2: What do users do when they can’t agree on what to watch?
The second issue we intend on solving is the answer to the age-old question, “What do you want to watch?” Whether watching in a group of 2 or 20, users often cannot agree on what to watch.
Our Proposal
Our research shows that users want a built-in, easy-to-use, party view option to watch shows and movies with loved ones directly from Netflix, allowing them to remotely watch while socially distancing. Adding this feature allows Netflix to remain competitive with other streaming services, some of which that already have this feature.
With the introduction of our new swipe feature, Movie Match, we give users a fun solution to choosing a movie or show as a group.
The Blueprints of Our Plan
For our design process, we followed the double diamond model, breaking the project up into four phases. The focus of Phase 1 was to gather data about User’s wants, needs, and pain points, as well as perform competitive analysis to see how Netflix stands up to the competitors. In Phase 2, we grouped our collected data and formed it into I-Statements, “How Might We” questions, and honed it all into one problem statement. Phase 3 marked the start of designing our product. We started with a design studio and finished the phase with a mid-fidelity prototype ready for usability testing. For Phase 4, the process was simple; refine, test, and repeat, until we had a fully functional, high-fidelity prototype ready to be presented.
To Define The Problem, We Had To Refine The Data
We started our research with a survey. We focused on asking broad questions about user habits with their streaming services. Once enough participants responded to our survey, we collected the data and examined it for trends.
From the information we gathered from our surveys, we noticed common trends and pain points emerging. We structured our interview questions to dig deeper into those problem areas.
Once our interviews were completed, we took all our users’ responses, wrote them on sticky notes in Figjam, scrambled them into a giant mess, and then sorted them all out into similar categories creating an affinity map.
Our affinity map allowed us to group user feedback into one of four categories: 1) High-Impact, 2) Low-Impact, 3) Non-Feasible, and 4) Non-Helpful. After much deliberation, we selected what we felt would be the most impactful problems to move forward with.
With our problems now identified, we now could define the problem, create a persona, and take a deep dive into the ideation portion of the project.
Let’s start asking questions
Netflix is already a well-known commodity. As we began looking for ways to improve it, we knew we wouldn’t be reinventing the wheel. Our survey gave us a lot of broad, but useful information. What stood out to us was how many respondents mentioned a party-view feature.
We started digging deeper
Our survey did a good job pointing us in the right direction for our interviews. We refined our questions and really dug into the “why” behind the “what” with our user interview questions. Once we finished our interviews, we were able to obtain specific user wants, needs, and pain points. Shown below are two quotes taken from users during interviews that stood out to us.
Finding patterns
We took the information collected from our interviews and sorted it on an affinity map. We ended up with nine groupings: Contents, Devices, Habits, Non-helpful, Party-View, Filtering, Subtitles, Customization, and Agreement.
Once they were grouped, we had some decisions to make. The first and easiest was to take information that was deemed non-helpful and remove it from consideration. These mostly consisted of vague answers with no discernable or useful content. The second task was to remove from consideration groupings with no feasible UX/UI solution. For example, available content was brought up frequently, but this is not a UX/UI problem. This left us 5 feasible groupings which we sorted into Low-Impact and High-Impact.
This left us with a bit of a dilemma. Of our two High-Impact groupings, which should we explore? We were torn as we really liked both, so we made a bold decision, and chose both.
Meet the Lonely Transplant
Our persona is a culmination of information gathered and synthesized from our surveys and user interviews. Watching movies with friends and loved ones is their passion, but having recently moved to a new city in the middle of a pandemic, they are finding themselves increasingly isolated and lonely. Our persona embodies the circumstances and emotions of those we interacted with during the research phase.
Start alone, end alone…
Unfortunately, with the onset of the COVID-19 virus in 2019, many of us can most likely relate to the Lonely Transplant’s journey navigating current state Netflix. The Lonely Transplant’s journey starts out sitting at home, alone, wishing they were watching a movie with friends, and ultimately ends in the exact same place due to struggles and frustrations of trying to set up a party-watch using a third-party application. Frustrations peak as the group cannot agree on a movie to watch, and struggle to grasp using a new party view application.
So how might we…
Let’s Get To The Fun Stuff
It started with pen and paper
Initial ideas started with a 20-minute design studio. After each of us presented our ideas, we collectively chose what we felt were the best options to move forward with. Starting the design phase with a design studio allowed us as a team to sift through all our ideas and hand pick what we felt were the best of the best ideas.
Netflix already has a large number of users who are already familiar with the current layout and aesthetics. Our team agreed that the new features we were proposing should keep the same look and feel as the existing app. We worked to make our new “Connect” page a seamless transition from the Home page to the Connect Lobby.
So what do we want to watch?…
The swipe feature is now universally known as a quick way of saying “yes” or “no,” so we decided to apply this to our proposed feature, “Movie-Match.” Here, your watch-party will be prompted to swipe on movies or shows for a predesignated amount of time. Once time runs out, the results are shown to all.
Let’s get testing
Usability testing highlighted several areas needing improvement. The first round of usability testing was done on our mid-fidelity prototype. Users were instructed to host a Party-View session with friends, vote as a group on what movie to watch, and finally, start the movie and cast it to their TV. Users were encouraged to talk us through their thought and decision-making process throughout the duration of the test.
The Task
After the test, users were asked a series of Likert Scale questions about their experience and were given time to bring up any comments or concerns they had. During the testing process, we also timed each user, counted their mouse clicks or “go” actions, and counted total user errors throughout their test.
Making needed changes
Our users gave us great feedback, providing us with direction for some much-needed change and improvements. The first and possibly most significant change we made was to add the Spotlight feature. By spotlighting changes and new features, users’ attention was automatically drawn to areas of interest, eliminating confusion on where to navigate next.
The second major change made was to redesign the button layout on the Connect Home screen. During the mid-fidelity usability tests, users confused the square shape of the button as non-interactable, assuming it was an image or logo. We addressed this by redesigning all three party-view CTAs with a circular design, giving them more of a traditional “button” appearance. We also removed the public chat feature from this screen as it gave users the impression they were already in their own private lobby. We collectively decided to remove the “Social Watch” feature from this iteration of the prototype and place our focus solely in private group party views.
The third major change we made doesn’t seem like much at first, but our Movie-Match CTA caused a lot of confusion with our users. Some users said it too closely resembled the Connect CTA on the previous screen, and ignored it thinking they had already interacted with it. We addressed this by adding a spotlight feature around it (not shown), and changing the button color from black to red. By changing the color, it became both more visible and was easy to differentiate from the Connect button.
Welcome to Netflix Connect
Let’s take a tour, or click the link below to view the prototype.
Wrapping Up
Netflix is already a streaming service giant with a loyal following. As the COVID-19 virus has forced more and more of us to work remotely, spend less time with friends, and leave the house increasingly less, features that accommodate these unforeseen circumstances can work in huge ways. Several other streaming services already have a built-in, party view feature. By adding party view to Netflix, it both addresses a customer want and need as well as keeps Netflix as front-runners for feature availability. With the introduction of the Movie Match swipe feature, Netflix now has a fun, interactive way to answer the age-old question, “what are we going to watch?”
My Personal Growth
While no project is ever fully finished, I take great pride in our final prototype and the feedback it elicited from the users. As a team, we wanted to not only solve a major problem Netflix users voiced, but we wanted to come up with a bold and fun solution. I feel we accomplished this. The main roadblock I experienced was not being able to fit in all aspects of my ideas in the time I had. I had to leave out many good ideas, but by doing so, I was able to take 100% of my effort and focus it all on what would be the final prototype. A risk we took as a group was to include the Movie Match swipe-feature. We knew that this could drastically change the amount of work we would all have, but all agreed the risk was worth taking. In the end, we couldn’t be happier we chose to include it. In summary, this was a very rewarding experience. We made an exciting prototype that is both unique in concept and tangibly robust, one that we are very proud to share with you.