Flick – Allowing viewers a brand new experience of watching mov…

Overview

For the last 10 years, OTT platforms are rising at a high pace and it has become one of the main sources of entertainment. But the fragmentation of various sources has made it increasingly complex for users to discover and manage the content they are interested in.

Flick is a case study where I tried out to analyze the user behavior from deciding to watch a TV show, how it affects them, and come up with solutions that make decision-making easier, faster, and more informative. And most importantly entertaining.

Goals

Allowing viewers to give a brand new experience of watching movies

The goal is to explore the possibilities to allow viewers a brand new experience of watching TV Show. The aim is to make the movie-watching experience a social experience as well as make it a more personal experience and a platform to connect with others on a deep level.  

Process

The initial plan is to have a first-person view of what the customer needs may be – using my hypotheses, my assumptions, my gut, and my intuitions and then back it up with customer research pointers. I believe a designer that doesn’t know what their user wants to a great degree without actually asking the user won’t make a good designer.

So I used my intuition and then started doing user research to validate my hypotheses. My goal was to blend my ideas with the outcome of user interview/survey.

Secondary Research

I started with secondary research on popular stream services platform as Netflix, Prime, and Disney Plus. I tried to understand how the users interact with the platform. In order to understand a full user flow, from sitting on the couch to finishing a show, users go through tons of decisions making, which led us to think of how to ensure a better experience.

Interview, Questionnaire, and Findings

I have sent out 25 online questionnaires and got 18 responses. 60% of participants have experienced difficulty in finding tv shows to watch, and over half of them thought it negatively affects the experience if they cannot find the right tv shows. When asked about watching a tv show, 70% of participants expressed concerns thinking about the quality of the series and whether should they change the show in the middle. Here are the other key findings regarding that interview.

Users get confused about choosing a movie.

Users would be interested in meeting/getting in touch with new people.

Some users prefer to share movies only with their friends.

People most commonly share the movie they watch on Instagram/ Facebook.

People love to know what their surroundings are watching as well as their taste in movies.

Users often find it hard to decide which movie to watch.

Users sometimes prefer playing games.

Sometimes it’s hard to understand a movie’s plot and characters in a movie.

Users have certain movie clips that they want to watch again and again.

Survey Findings

“Genre selection and recommendations from friends & family topped the list of preferences for watching new shows”

Solutions

Sharing and recommending movies are personal and easier

Allow users to create different types of playlists on their profiles.

Ask for a movie recommendation from friends and family.

Adding stories/ What movies currently users are watching?

Allowing users to add shows/movies and set alerts to be notified of any new releases.

Increasing social engagement and unity and bringing the communities together

Allow users to browse other users’ public profiles and add movies to their playlists from them.

A feature showing movie compatibility between users.

Allow users to join other users’ movie streams and watch a movie together.

Increasing user trust with new features

Allow users to switch their accounts private.

A feature following users to remove their followers.

Key Features

Networking

Viewers can build a network

Viewers can share their playlists and communicate while enjoying a show together

Recommendation

Several sorts of movie recommendations.

Recommend movie/ TV Shows to friends.

Users can hover over the movie poster and by default trailer or a part of the movie would play.

Organized Profile

Play games with friends.

Different types of games will keep engaging you with the movie

Gaming

Make your profile organized.

Share the movies you are watching with friends.

Reflection and Next Steps

Challenges and Takeaways

Initially, I struggled to decide what is the key problem I want to solve. I realized most of our preference depends on the people we mostly interact with, it will be effective if we can connect them through the platform. Designing for a specific user can lead to a product that works for other users as well. Though I did not test the features with the users, I tried to understand the mental model of the users. 

Next Steps

Moving forward, I want to create a higher-fidelity prototype with more features. I would also like to refine the game experience to include more variety.