NETFLIX: Browsing Redesigned
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The goal of this project was to apply Design Thinking to a deeply refined app to make the user experience even more enjoyable.
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My Role
Competitive Research, User Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Persona,
Usability Testing, Usability Reports, Wireframing, Mockups
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Team and Timeline
Two Designers, 6 Days
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Tools
Figma, Miro
How Can We Make This Better?
Netflix pioneered online streaming and is one of the most popular streamers in the world, but there's always room for an improved user experience. I spent one week with one other teammate applying Design Thinking principles to define and solve a problem space in the Netflix TV app. We conducted research that challenged our assumptions, designed individual solutions, competed against each other for the best design, and worked together to elevate and mockup the winning solution.
Defining the Problem Space
Netflix is already well-designed, so we conducted an Heuristic Evaluation and Competitive Feature Analysis to find an entry point for improvement. This research revealed two major takeaways that led to our initial hypothesis.
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Users have very little control over what content is shown to them. The My List feature is one of the only ways users can customize their experience.
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Netflix stood out amongst competitors as having an extensive amount of content and more robust content categories.
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We thought customization would be important to users based on the amount of content available and lack of customization options. This theory informed our initial problem statement and guided our user research.
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How might we provide options for customization while also maintaining the experience of discovering unexpected new content?
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Heuristic Evaluation for Netflix
The My List feature is one of the only customization options
Will User Interviews Validate Our Theory of Customization?
Our user interviews were guided by the theory that users would want the ability to customize Netflix and gain greater control over the content they see. We discovered some interesting insights from our interviews via affinity mapping.
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Devices used?
The Netflix TV app was used significantly more than the mobile or desktop versions.
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How do users find content to watch?
Users spent 15-20 minutes of browsing to find something to watch.
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Opinions on personalized customization options?
Our users wanted to maintain the ability to discover new content through the algorithm and were not interested in customization, especially if it took too much work (1-2 clicks max).
Affinity Mapping of User Interviews
Refining the Problem Space
The interview results were surprising and revealed a diverging outcome from our original theory. Now we understood that browsing was the problem that needed to be solved, not customization. With our newfound observations we were able to pivot our focus and develop a user persona and a revised problem statement.
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Netflix has thousands of pieces of content on the platform at any given time.
It takes users 15-20 minutes of browsing to find something to watch.
How might we distill the most suitable content for each user?
User Persona crafted from User Interview insights
Usability Testing for Browsing Habits
With browsing now the focus area, we conducted usability testing to find out how users found content to watch and how long it took.
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Task #1
Find Content Without Defined Categories
You want to watch a romantic comedy movie. How would you find and decide which one to watch?
Task #2
Find Content With Ambiguous Category Labels
How would you find and decide on a piece of content to watch from the popular category?
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I created usability reports to consolidate the findings. All of our users spent more than 60 seconds browsing, while 67% spent more than 90 seconds. External research showed that while browsing Netflix, the average user loses interest after 60-90 seconds (Source). Our recommendations for improvement included decreasing user browsing time and expanding available categories to make content easier to find.
Usability Report for Task #1
Usability Report for Task #2
Wireframing Solutions
The usability testing provided a clear path forward - to decrease the time spent browsing and make the content categories more useful. Our interviews also revealed most users used the Netflix TV app, so we chose to design specifically for TV. My teammate and I separately created our own individual solution wireframes that would be later judged by a panel.
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My solution focused on getting users to the content they wanted to see, faster. Netflix has 73 cards per carousel which takes approximately 1:01 to scroll all the way through at a moderately fast pace. Drilling down via a multi-select filter would allow a user to quickly hone in on a smaller subset of tailored content options.
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My design also addresses the ambiguous content categories. While some of the quirky content categories Netflix provides (like "Oddballs & Outcasts") can be fun, they can also be confusing. Users can create their own unique categories of content by selecting different criteria via the filter that is actually interesting to them.
Features of my design include:
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Filter overlay immediately present upon opening app.
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Multi-select filter to quickly drill down into multiple criteria to provide unique and tailored content options
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Option to browse normally
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Ability to never display filter overlay
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Filter always available as one of the navigation buttons on the left side​
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Wireframe of my proposed solution
The Winning Solution Goes to Mockup
The panel of judges chose my teammate's solution as the winner. The major feedback I received on my design was that there were too many clicks before the user got to the content. However, they suggested if we had been designing for desktop I might have won.
I agree with the decision. My teammate's solution was more elegant as it fit natively in the existing architecture of the interface. Her design had the ability to expand the main content categories into sub-categories. The original wireframe accomplished this with icons on the side of each category that could be clicked to reveal more related categories.
We then worked together on the winning solution to refine the design and create a high-fidelity mockup. I contributed the idea to change the icons on the side into cards that sat directly in the carousel to eliminate clicks. I also suggested these cards should be in a bold Netflix red to stand out while scrolling and that the sub-categories follow the inverse color scheme.
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Wireframe of my teammate's solution
Mockup of final solution that both my teammate and I worked on together
Final Thoughts
There are quite a few things I learned during this project that enhanced my research and design skills and I have more ideas for future iterations.
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Lessons Learned
We started our initial research using the mobile app, but ultimately designed for TV based on our research findings. Conducting a quick survey at the very beginning of the project to determine most popular device would have been beneficial so we could work across the same device type from research through final design.
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Our research diverged from our original assumptions around customization and being able to pivot was essential. Changing course and allowing the research to guide our design decisions kept the user centered at all times.
My design was not chosen to move forward to the mockup stage. Accepting criticism of my work and then working collaboratively on a design that was not mine made me a better designer and sharpened my design thinking.
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Next Steps
Due to budget and time constraints we were only able to interview six users, most of which were women. Conducting more research while expanding the sample set by size and diversity would provide even greater insights into user behavior.
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Our design ended at the mockup stage. I would like to see this solution fully prototyped with multiple screens and conduct usability testing to refine the final design to its fullest potential.
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I would like to expand the design to include solutions to the browsing problem across mobile and desktop device types.