Survey

The survey showed that 100% of the participants watched online streaming services and majority used Netflix and YouTube as their means of watching shows. When deciding what to watch within Netflix:

• 90% relied on Top picks for you

• 90% relied on personal online search

• 80% friend’s recommendation

• 60% relied on Current Top 10 in U.S

When asked how can online streaming services make it easier for the user to find what you want to watch 80% said better filtering to populate recommendations and 20% expressed to add a feature to see friends recommendations.

One-to-One User Interview

After a general survey, I decided to learn more about online streaming users so I conducted a one-to-one user interview with seven participants. There were 6 females and 1 male ages ranging from 35 to 45 years old. Here are some of the results:

• 100% of the participants used Netflix landing page option to help them search for what to watch

• 100% scroll to see Top 10 Movies in the U.S. Today, Top Picks for you, Trending Now, etc.

• 71% want to know what their friends are watching within Netflix

• 86% suggested adding a feature that would allow their friends to recommend shows from Netflix

Then I categorized the findings by three parts:

• Pros of watching Netflix

• Frustrations from the Netflix users

• Their opinion about adding a friend recommend feature since general survey showed interest

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

After understand Netflix users, I wanted to understand the competitors of Netflix.

PERSONA

Researching about he users helped me understand what a typical user would be. Base on the information I have gathered, I developed a persona for Netflix.

This is a typical Netflix user. Meet Jackie Williams. She is a big fan of Netflix. She loves the fact that Netflix is accessible with any device but gets frustrated when she’s trying to find something new to watch. She spends countless amount of time scrolling to see what to watch. She wants to know what her friends are watching and want to find more customized recommendation list to save her scrolling time.

TASK FLOW

Now that we understand Netflix user’s behavior and what they are looking for, I decided to map out the task flow of where this feature would be added. To get this feature started, you first need to make sure you are connected to your friends within your Netflix account.

Task: To add friends to your Netflix profile from your contacts

USER FLOW

Now let’s look at exactly what the user’s path will be to first add a friend to your profile. Let’s map out each step the user would take from the beginning to the end of this process.

RESPONSIVE WIREFRAMES

After going through user flow, I started to design wireframes to represent this feature.

HI-FI WIREFRAME

To test adding a feature, I began to design a realistic prototype that would closely resemble this added feature.

Here is one way to add friends from Netflix:

USABILITY TESTING

Once the prototype was ready, I started my usability test to test several features.

The tasks that I asked the users to perform were:

1. Add friends to your Netflix account

2. Share a show with your friends

While the users were performing tasks, I was also interested in their thought on:

• The user’s impression of the app after the new feature was added

• The user’s experience of using the added feature - whether it integrated well with current flow of the app

• Observe any areas of frustration, confusion, hesitation while performing the tasks

TESTING RESULTS

There were six participants for the usability test. Once this was performed, it was reassuring to know that most felt that the new added feature integrated well with current interface. However, there were some pain points and improvements that the users suggested.

• 83% of the users felt that the new added feature was seamlessly integrated

• 83% of the users thought Recommended by Friends category could use a better title

• 67% of the users had hard time finding what percentage of their friends recommended a particular show

AFFINITY MAP

The results were organized using affinity map where they were categorized by: Success, Pain Points, and Improvements

Affinity map truly shows that even though the users were successful in adding friend within Netflix, the users highlighted areas of improvement to make this process user friendly.

ITERATION

It’s amazing how wording can change user’s affection because during the usability testing, 83% of the users did not like “Recommended by Friend” category. Most wanted more friendly or inviting words to differentiate that category from the others.

From the Netflix main page, I changed the category from “Recommended by Friends” to “Popular Among Friends”

Another area of improvement according to the research was to show which friend recommended the shows. I implemented this by providing friend’s icons on the top corner of the each shows under “Popular Among Friends”.

One of the biggest concern was not being able to see easily what percent of your friends recommended shows from the “Recommended by Friends” category. To accommodate this change, I re positioned show details page so that the percent viewed will be more visible and changed the percentage from black font color to red.

KEY TAKEAWAY

One of the advantages of working with existing application is that you really have to study it carefully. It allows you to understand why certain things are there and the possible reasoning behind it. By adding a feature to a current application, I learned how to seamlessly integrate new feature to the existing application. I also learned that adding a feature needs to be carefully thought out with the decision makers. For this project’s purpose, I had to assume the technology behind finding a unique key for Netflix users is already exists for my feature to work. I realized that I can design a feature, but I also need to communicate with the team to confirm of the process can be done technically within allowed budget.

NEXT STEPS

After making several iterations, my next step would be to do more user testing around the changes. I would like to know if the new changes made the user less frustrated and get more feedback on how to make this added feature more user friendly.

I would also like to explore building a community within Netflix for the users to engage by

• Developing Send a Note feature where friends can send a note of why they think you will like certain shows

• Creating Comments for shows where you and your friends are freely talk about the show

• Creating Share Watch feature where you can plan to watch shows with your friends

Continuous of iteration will be needed but once the user’s feedback shows more success, I would like to present this added feature to Netflix.