Designing conceptual features to improve adult animation discovery for Netflix viewers.
ROLE
UI/UX Designer
SKILLS
Product Design
User research
Prototyping
TYPE
Product Innovation
Case Study
TIMELINE
5 weeks
Sept - Oct 2022
CONTEXT
In my Netflix Studio course at UT, my team delved into real-world issues surrounding viewer habits and choices on the Netflix platform.
I worked in a team of 5 students to design a new selection feature with the objective to make the selection process for viewers more efficient and increase user engagement. We presented our solutions to industry professionals of Netflix’s Product Designers and UX Researchers.
CHALLENGE
General:
How can we increase delight for viewers?
Our team’s:
How might we offer an easy way for adult animation fans to discover content that explores their interests?
SOLUTION
Curated top recommendations based off viewer habits, along with a second screen for viewers to interact with.
THE PROBLEM
We were prompted to discover a prominent viewer issue specific to a chosen audience demographic.
Adult animation (AA) was a genre that interested us in the way that despite having content on Netflix, AA is not officially listed by Netflix as a genre to select unless specifically searched.
RESEARCH
Through watching adult animation titles, compiling tweets, finding news articles, and interviewing AA fans, we were able to better understand the audience and general perspective of adult animation.
ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS
Audience
Adult animation is huge with Gen Z and millennials that can resonate with “edgy humor,” who wish to see more exploration of serious topics for young adults.
Mature Issues
Fans choose to watch adult animation because of how “humorous but also thoughtful” the content could be. It dives into “complex themes and subject matters” in a light manner.
Nostalgia
Many were introduced to this genre when they were kids watching Adult Swim late at night, making adult animation content nostalgic for those who grew up watching it.
Social Media Influence
Adult animation’s reach is widening through internet culture, as some discovered AA through memes and discussion on social media.
Public Perception
Fans remain aware of the stigma of watching adult animation, as there is a general belief that it is limited to shallow, crude, and low quality content.
“Chill” First Time Recommendation
When prompted to recommend AA content for a first-timer, fans would often suggest “something light-hearted and chill yet intriguing” (ie Bob’s Burgers). Sharing content that seems “less committal” to ease them in.
VIEWER JOURNEY MAP
BRAINSTORMING FEATURES
Looking into the issue of how the genre of adult animation was being publicly perceived, we concluded that the lack of exposure of diverse adult animation content was the problem.
Initial HMW Question: How might we help viewers discover personally impactful content within the adult animation genre?
IDEA: filter categories within adult animation - creating three variants for usability testing. This way, viewers can discover new kinds of adult animation content that bleeds into the content they typically watch.
We designed the feature of category buckets with recommendations. With this, viewers could navigate different categories under adult animation and receive a top recommendation within each category.
BRAIN DUMP
INITIAL OVERARCHING IDEA
Filter categories within genres
INITIAL VARIANT #1
Category Buckets with Recommendations
INITIAL VARIANT #2
Multi-select Bubbles
INITIAL VARIANT #3
Caret Multi-select Dropdown
USABILITY TESTING FINDINGS
We tested the three variants of filtering categories within adult animation on the same adult animation viewers. In addition, we asked them more about their habits when looking for content to watch. As a result, we discovered several significant insights.
USER FEEDBACK
Content Fatigue
● “There’s still tons of content to look through”
● “I get tired and lost going through multiple pages”
● “I don’t like having to look through so many categories, I would just give up”
Desirability of Personalization
● “I like the recommendation, it feels personal and useful”
● “I appreciate feeling like Netflix could understand my tastes”
● “The Why? intrigues me immediately to understand why this recommendation was given to me”
Relevancy of Genres
● “I would never go beyond the main genre”
● “I feel like there’s no need to include specific genres, I wouldn’t even look at them”
● “I wouldn’t really think there exists more specific subgenres within Adult Animation, and seek them out”
General Browsing through Homepage
● “Usually I just scroll through the home page”
● “I just stick to looking through the home page and don’t explore other pages”
First Scroll Browsing
● “I give up on searching if I don’t find anything interesting in the first two screens of scrolling”
● “I’ll just scroll through the home page, not find anything intriguing, quit and say that Netflix has nothing good”
Searching for Specific Titles
● “I’ll just search for the title if I know what I want to watch”
Discovery Elsewhere
● “I’ll find shows that I’m interested in through video edits on social media, and then look them up on Netflix to watch”
● “I usually search up shows on Google and then go back to Netflix to watch it”
Our usability testing findings pointed to that the initial idea of offering filter categories was not effectively improving the adult animation viewer experience. This pushed us to reconsider and clearly define our viewer objectives and exactly what needed to be solved for.
What the viewer actually wants:
1. New content → deeper discovery of the adult animation genre
2. Meets the viewer’s interests → catered to their moods and tastes
3. Quick and easy! → accessible and low barrier to understand and use
FINAL PROBLEM SPACE
After analyzing the feasibility and impact of multiple variant features, we redefined our HMW question.
How might we help viewers discover personally impactful content within the adult animation genre?
How might we offer an easy way for adult animation fans to discover content that explores their interests?
FINAL SOLUTION
Curated top recommendations for viewers
To supplement this experience, we offer a secondary screen that would serve as a convenient remote for viewers. This prevents the anticipated pain point of having to click through endlessly to reach the desired action.
Low barrier to finding content
One of the largest pain points for viewers was feeling discouraged from finding new content to watch due to overload of content being presented to them. This prevented them from exploring adult animation deeper and finding new content within the genre to enjoy.
We designed the viewer experience of browsing for new content to be quick, easy, and personal.
KEY USABILITY TESTING FINDINGS
Discovering New Information
“Variety and specificity of mood and genre filters”
“Why? feature displays relevant and interesting information”
Second Screen
“Liked having the second screen option to scroll through recommendations”
Confusion
“Clicked on More Info button instead of Why?”
Habits/Familiarity
“Why? Feature has to be more compelling for me to click on – too vague as is”
“Most likely to just scroll down through the home page instead of linger on recommendation feature”
“I like reading the plot summary or seeing a short clip of a show before deciding what to watch and would want that on the second screen as well”
NEXT STEPS
Desirability
Improve on how recommendations can be more useful to viewer
Discover and target more specific moods particular of adult animation viewers
Incorporate nostalgia for recommendations
Feasibility
Figure out how the second screen will reflect the information that is shown on a television screen
Understand how feasible it is to incorporate personalized explanations for recommendations via Why? button
Viability
How to ensure that these recommendations won’t be ignored and passed over
How viable it is to use a second screen/interaction simply for recommendations