Netflix Playlist
New feature — Case Study
Background
Most of the currently available video streaming services don’t have the option to create playlists. Netflix has an option to add titles to “My list” as a “watch later” feature. However, users can’t organize it into named categories or add individual series episodes. Wouldn’t it be great to have a streaming list of all your favorite series episodes all in one place? Or make a selection of the best Western movies and then share on your social media or with your friends?
Challenge
How might we make it possible for users to easily create, shuffle-play, and share curated playlists on Netflix?
Goals
Discovery
I, as usual, kicked off by creating an initial 💡 CSD Matrix to gather all the information I’ve had from the brief together with some first assumptions and doubts found during Desktop Research. Then, I defined the research key focus and methods. For this project, I’ve conducted a Market Research Analysis to understand how the problem was being handled by other streaming services and why most of them don’t have a similar feature. Also, a Survey was done as a way to quantify the problem, and points were either confirmed or refuted by a deeper exploration with the User Interviews.
Research Methods
Key focus
Do users think a playlist feature would be useful? What for?
What’s important for a great feature experience?
What are the users’ needs and unmet needs?
How are users alternatively accomplishing this task now?
Market Research Analysis
One big point at this stage is to first understand how the streaming market is currently approaching their user’s needs. After doing the Market Research Analysis with the main competitors, and position them (Positioning Chart), something came to my mind: If big brands like Netflix didn’t think about adding a playlist feature, is it a thing? Was it someone’s struggle?
User research
It was then time to continue the research and talk to users to validate my assumptions. I decided to make some extra desktop research and, in the meanwhile, sent a survey on channels with people that usually consume this kind of service.
After analyzing 45 answers, here are my insights:
The research step confirmed that a playlist feature would put Netflix in a highlighted position if compared with the main competitors. Netflix, are you listening?
Who are we designing for?
It became more clear who the users of the new feature were, their habits, goals, and pain points and later they were represented in this Persona.
Meet Joana!
User Journey Map
Through the lens of Joana, I created a Journey Map to visualize the pain points in her journey.
Context: Joana will have some friends over for the weekend, and she’s planning to do a marathon of their favorite TV shows on Netflix, but she doesn’t want to watch a whole season of one or another. She wants to watch only that special highlighted episodes, the ones that made them laugh the most and they couldn’t stop talking about. What would she do?
Define
The information collected from surveys, interviews, and market analysis were synthesized into these user stories accordingly. This process will give me the foundation for the next step i.e. wireframes and clearly defines my MVP goals.
User Stories and HMW
To brainstorm functions for the feature, I created a How Might We and User Stories chart using insight from my research.
Main Functions
Information Architecture
I’ve decided to first focus on the mobile APP, and after identifying a solid set of major functions, I’ve mapped out the specific Information Architecture of the feature. It gave me an idea of how to organize the content and how many interactions it will take for users to complete a task.
User Flow
Since it’s a feature based on creating playlists, the main User Flow I’ve picked was for users to select titles and add them to a new playlist. I first decided to keep the same logic behind the already existent “Downloads” feature, that allows users to download one episode at a time.
Ideation
By now, I have gathered a lot of information, but before I jumped into sketching wireframes, I decided to take a look around to see how similar features are being used by other APPs.
Wireframes
I created this set of mid-fidelity wireframes of all of the key screens needed to complete the main task that I will be testing for: to select titles and add them to a new playlist.
Validation
I conducted user testings with 9 users on my mid-fidelity prototype to see how users would complete the tasks once they were given some context. All tests showed positive feedbacks for this first task flow. However,they’ve found that it was a little hard to find the playlists on the navbar. For this reason, a few changes were made on The Information Architecture regarding the location of the new feature.
My first try was to replace the current “My List”. However, people thought it was a bit confusing and not very easy to find.
UI
For the UI choices, I’ve tried to keep my decisions based on the original Netflix’s Style Guide. I’ve created an Atomic Design System to help me speed up the designing process.
After users click on the “Add to Playlist” icon, placed by the already existent “Download” icon, a list of existent playlists pops up, as the option to create a new playlist.
Users can find the playlists inside “My Library”. Once inside a playlist, they have the option to play as it is, shuffle-play, or even share it through social media.
Prototype
Now, here’s the resulting star ⭐️!
Learnings and Surprises
For my conclusion, I’m gonna highlight the new experience that was working by myself for the first time in the Bootcamp. Even though it was easier to go with my timeframe, working without a team prevents you from having great discussions, which can bring a lot of insights.
My main learning from this week was that: Atomic Design is AMAZING! 💕It helped me a lot with giving the design the consistency it needed and also speeded up a lot the process.
