Redesigning The Amazon- ‘Prime Video’ App- A UI/UX Case Study
Introduction
At least for once, we all have faced a situation where we fill up snacks, grab a bottle of drink and get excited to spend the next few hours watching a movie. You open an OTT platform and start scrolling. You scroll, scroll, scrolle— you are unable to pick a movie — get frustrated — give up and quit the platform — Mood off — (thud) there goes the remote.
In this UX case study, I look forward to solve the above problem with respect to Amazon ‘Prime Video’ mobile app and thus intend to give the viewers a soothing experience in finding that one movie out of hundreds which suits their mood.
Role and constraints
Role: UX/UI research and design
Timeline: 12 Feb, 2022 -27 Feb, 2022
Software: Adobe XD, Adobe Photoshop
Problem Statement: Audience are of different age group, mind-set, likes and dislikes. Wide range of options available on the platform often makes them puzzled and this influence the viewer to quit or switch to other platform. Thus it becomes very necessary to help them narrow down the options according to their choice.
Design Process
Design Thinking
Design Thinking is a strategy for creative problem solving by prioritising customers’ requirements above everything else. It helps to engage a person in several opportunities like experimenting and creating a prototype model, gathering feedback from customers and redesigning the product using innovative solutions.
I choose to implement 4D methodology to solve this case study as it is user-centric and iterative process used in digital design and development.
Background
- Hypothesis: As a UX designer, we must think of a solution to provide better experience to users. In order to achieve this, we ought to understand what the users look for and what are the factors causing barriers. That is done by conducting a survey about the same. The survey is followed by personal interviews, which helps in better understanding of the problems they face.
- Why this case study?: Number of audience relying on online platform for entertainment has gradually increased in the past 2–3years. The OTT platforms are on the verge of competition to release more and better movies than the rest, which increase the number of options to choose from. No platforms would want the viewer to choose another platform over theirs. Thus every platforms wishes to stand-out in the crowd which is done by working on improvising its user-interface.
Research
The main purpose of this phase is to find answers for the 5 WH question: Who? When? Why? Where? What? Limited number of questions were asked during the online survey, which was shared amongst people with different age category and occupation. The targeted audiences were of the aged between 19–52 years. Most of them were from the age group of 19–30 years. It was observed that the youth are more inclined into these platform unlike the elders due to various reasons. Some of which were, the elders not being able to find relevant movies or not many movies in a particular language or difficulty in navigating the complete platform and so.
Survey Results: The questions were simple and straight forward. The answers received from various candidates was considered before picking a few for the interview. Below is a brief statistical view of the interview
1. What is the first thing you notice when you login? About 97% said they would look into new-releases and the rest said- Recommendations
2. Methodology used to pick a movie: The 3 major methods used were: using filters, watching trailers and directly typing the name
3. How frequently they used segregate filters? Only 6% said they never used filters
4. Do you always find something to watch? 26% were affirmative, 44% were in dilemma, 30% said NO!
5. What do you do if you don’t find anything to watch? 29.5% said that they would settle with some random movie while the other 70.5% said that they would quit and use other platforms
6. How much time do you spend on searching? 23.5% — 2min, 44% — 3-5min, 29.4% — 6–10min, remaining>10min
Based on the survey results, it can be noted that majority of them had similar motto and also faced the similar problems. I picked 5 users for interview to get more insights.
User Interview
User Persona
In user experience and user interface (UX/UI) design, a persona is a fictional character that represents a typical user of an app, website, or the product.
A user persona helps clarify your target audience:
- It helps with design iteration. During alpha and beta testing, the feedback you get will help you improve your user persona.
- It helps you identify the user. A persona helps you understand their needs.
- It gives you an understanding of user behavior.
- USER 👦
Name: Amogh
Age: 21 years
Occupation: Student
Does: Checks the new release and then jumps to recommended movies. Usually picks a movie based on his mood. Does not like to spend too much time exploring
Pain Points: Recommended movies does not always go with the mood. Need to watch trailers to properly understand the movie, this consumes a lot of time and eventually loose interest - USER 👧
Name: Shwetha
Age: 27 years
Occupation: Architect
Does: Checks the Watchlist first. If nothing interesting is found checks for other movies by reading the description, watching the trailer and cast detail. Also likes to check out new releases. Does a good research before deciding on one movie
Pain Points: Going through so many option leads to confusion - USER👦
Name: Manish
Age: 19 Years
Occupation: Student
Does: Frequently use filters to find a movie. Goes surfing in the whole platform before deciding
Paint Points: Too many options to check which is time killing. Cannot check multiple genre at once - USER 👧
Name: Sushma
Age: 34 years
Occupation: Lecturer
Does: Always uses filters to choose a movie/ Tv show. Watches trailer before picking. Interested in finding a movie in a specific genre and does not like to explore.
Pain Point: Need to check every new release individually to know the genre which is time killing. Ends up quitting the platform if relevant match is not found - USER 👧
Name: Bramarambika
Age: 47
Occupation: Home maker
Does: Directly searches for movies, rarely watches TV shows. Likes to watch movie in regional language.
Pain Point: Not many options are in regional languages. Filters cannot select more than 1 language at a time.
These interviews helped to understand the problems faced by the individuals. Based on the survey results and interviews the viewers can be widely classified into 2 sections.
- The Explorer: Surfs the whole platform before deciding
2. The Fusspot: Not ready to explore and are specific about their choice
Insight: From the above data we can notice that both the cases have a few things in common. By extracting the common behavior we will be able to give better solution satisfying both the category of people.
The empathy map for common behavioral pattern is as below
Develop
It is now time to ideate the solution for previously acquired data. The overview suggests that any user in general wish to priorities their choice before diving in. The basic idea is to make this easy.
Psychology of design principle says that the users tend to filter out a lot of information that they receive.
Cognitive Load: It is the strain a user experiences when he/she has to think too much just to get something done. User is impressed when he quickly gets what he likes, without much effort.
Hence we must work on reducing the steps to access what they like.
Drawbacks of current design are:
- Does not allow user to select both language and genre simultaneously
- Cannot select 2 or more genre/language at a time
- These filters are not clearly mentioned, where it can be noticed easily
- Filters cannot be applied for Watchlist, new release and recommended
Low Fidelity Wireframe
Below sketch shows the basic ideation process that helped me to create the final design.
It started with adding a basic filter option as seen commonly in most website (Design-1). But, it wasn’t too friendly if the user wants to choose only genre/language, hence I provided separate button (Design-2).
To make the Watchlist quickly available, it is added in the panel below by moving search button to top(Design-3 and Final Design)
High Fidelity Wireframe
- Current screen V/S Redesigned screen
Chances made:
Language and genre filter is introduced
Search button is moved to top
Watchlist button is introduced
- Functionality
The wireframe is self-explanatory
- Filter and Genre screen
The genre and language filters are designed such that multiple genre and language can be selected. Also both filters can be applied simultaneously. By applying the filter, the home screen is expected to adopt the change, i.e., if a user select comedy in genre, recommended option, popular, original etc are expected to show movies/TV show of the particular genre, in this case- comedy.
- Watchlist screen
It is quiet similar to currently existing screen
- Playing screen
Apart from the above problems, there is one more which I personally struggle with!! The Quality selection key. You will definitely relate to this trouble if you often use mobile data over Wi-fi. Every time we need head to exit the playing screen> my stuff> setting> stream & download>streaming quality> (select desired option). 5–6 steps!! It is clearly a cognitive barrier!
How convenient and happy would it be if a simple button is introduced in the play screen. Below is the wireframe of the same.
Steps: Press the 3 dot in top right corner> Quality> (make your choice)
Feedback
I was very excited to present the design and see what the users think. All of them were possitive. They were carried away by the fact that now they can easily narrow down their options based on their choice without wasting much time. It seemed like the quality option was an icing on the cake.
Here are some key points. (Names are not disclosed for privacy purpose)
- Most of them mention it was very cool to access multiple filters and that too simultaneously
- One of the user mentioned that he/she would totally forget about the Watchlist they made earlier and went on searching, but now, Watchlist would be the first thing they prefer to see
- Some users who never even checked the quality option and ended in losing all the data before finishing a movie. While the others ended watching the movies in low quality even while using Wi-Fi
Overall, the audience seemed to be very impressed, and thus of course- HAPPY ME!!
Upshots
With this very first case study of mine, I was able to implement most of what I had learnt from various course like Google-Coursera, Accenture- Future Learn and tons of videos on YouTube. At some point I started learning from Instagram pages and still continue to do so (*LOL).
Below are my major take-away.
👉 First and major key to be a better designer is, YOU≠USER
👉 I got to learn about different design thinking methodology, psychology of design principle and more
👉 Learnt about basic rules that speaks about size, dimension, color which makes the design look appealing
👉 It was so much fun interacting with so many people who were complete strangers, made me realize, better questions give better insights
👉 Learning to make utmost usage of tools is the hack behind getting a perfect shot
👉 This project also made me realize how we must be creative and yet keep it minimal
👉 High fidelity wireframes were done in a quick run. It made me improvise time management skills! As I finished this study amidst my exams
Thank you for reading💫
Don’t forget to leave your feedbacks in the comment section below, it will definetly help me to go a long way!!!
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