Netflix Case Study
Design Innovation Illinois
Timeline
Feb 2023 - April 2023
Role
UX Design Lead
Team
Maddie Kwon, Abby Cabrera,
Emily Chen
Learning Outcomes
UX Research, Prototyping,
& Usability Testing
Netflix is one of the world’s leading entertainment services, allowing users to watch what they want, when they want. Netflix is available on multiple platforms, including TV, desktop, and mobile. In this case study, my team and I explored the main reasons why Netflix users used the mobile application over other platforms and how to improve their experience accordingly.
Preliminary Research
User Interviews
To get a better understanding of why Netflix users use the mobile application over other platforms, we conducted user interviews. In these interviews, we aimed to learn two different key themes.
What are the specific use cases for Netflix’s app, and are these use cases easily accessible or easy for users to accomplish?
Why do users use Netflix over other streaming platforms, and why might they prefer other streaming platforms over Netflix?
In total, we interviewed 12 different users, categorized into three different types of users: occasional viewers, casual viewers, and intense viewers. From these interviews, we highlighted 5 different user insights that guided our project.
Tracking Content
Content Discovery
User Interaction
Homepage is inconsistent
and contains too many categories, hindering accessibility of categories.
Users discover new content through social media and word of mouth, methods that are not supported within the app.
Users want more user-to-user interaction within the app, but do not need another social media platform.
Users need more ways than My List to track multiple types of content.
There is a lack of separation between personal and general recommendations, making it difficult for discovery.
Competitive Analysis
To further our knowledge of streaming platform practices, we also looked at a few of Netflix’s competitors. From these four companies, we noticed that they highlighted different kinds of content within their app in unique ways to aid in user interests. Overall, we found that while there is no definitive practice for streaming platforms, each platform had a unique way of giving the user autonomy to explore in a way that feels natural to them.
User Personas & Journeys
Following our user discovery, and competitive analysis, we created three user personas that reflected our user insights.
Film Buff
Ferris
Ferris enjoys tracking his own opinions on shows and movies and categorizing his favorites into lists. He primarily uses Netflix to keep track of what he’s watched and liked in the past.
Painpoint: Current method of cataloging does not support his categorization habits
Needs: He needs a way to better keep track of everything he’s watched within the app
Mystery-Lover Melissa
Melissa is a true crime fanatic. She relies on all kinds of media to keep up with her community. She uses Netflix primarily to keep up with content to further discuss with her community online.
Painpoint: Melissa finds too many irrelevant categories are taking up space on the home page.
Needs: She needs a way to customize the app to prioritize easy-to-find personalized categories.
Binger Bella
Bella is an avid binge-watcher. She uses Netflix mainly to discover new shows that will interest her enough to keep her attention.
Painpoint: Bella endlessly scrolls through repetitive content before finding a show she likes
Needs: She needs newer and more relevant recommendations to be more discoverable.
Information Architecture
After creating our user personas, we brainstormed different solutions that would remedy our users’ pain points in navigation, discovery, and organization of content within the app. From there, we created an information architecture to guide us through our designs.
Initial Design Stages
Low-Fidelity Designs
For the home page, we introduced the ability to pin categories so users can get continuous recommendations that are relevant to them
On the home screen, you can see a section that states Still can’t decide what to watch? When clicking on this section, users are prompted to answer questions about what kind of content they are looking for. At the end of this questionnaire, a title will be recommended to the user.
To aid in user-to-user interaction, each user will now have their own public profile with its own unique ID. These IDs can be searched for, and added as friends on Netflix.
On this profile, users can see public lists!
Users can also click into categories to find more options.
In the My List tab, we introduced the ability to have multiple lists that can have multiple collaborators.
Additionally, each list now has smart recommendations that are decided from the list contents.
After adding other users as friends, users can start watch parties and invite their friends to watch.
Final Design
New Discovery Methods
Pin categories on the home screen.
Delve deeper into categories.
Search by genre.
Organize from desired filters.
Categorization of Content
Create, edit, and share multiple lists.
Add and share lists with friends.
Enjoy Content with Friends
Start a watch party with friends.
Select or vote on a title together.
Discover new content through personalized quiz results.
Chat with friends while watching.
Next Steps
Usability Testing, Final Edits, Final Prototype
Takeaways
This redesign project is the first UX design project that I have led before. During this process, I was unsure of my leadership skills. However, throughout the semester, I learned how to better organize and plan for the project, including hosting meetings, giving critique, and preparing my team for monthly presentations with the rest of the club. I learned that while I was leading, and teaching my members, that they also taught my invaluable lessons, both technically and as a leader.
Design-wise, this project went in a direction I did not expect. When planning for this project, I anticipated exploring multitasking and binge-watching. As we researched more and gained more insight on our users, we shifted our scope to discovering content through the Netflix mobile application, and designed to solve user friction points when searching.