Amazon is an online retail company that sells a variety of products including toys, electronics, apparel and accessories. In addition to its e-commerce platform, the company offers exclusive services such as Amazon Web Services (cloud storage service), Amazon Prime (OTT Streaming platform) and Alexa (virtual assistant).
According to the company, its main value is knowing the needs of its consumers. Amazon also preaches for innovation and speed as its core factors that contributed to the formation of an organizational culture focused on the customer.
My project is specifically focused on the video streaming service offered by Amazon- Prime Videos.
Project Overview
Prime Video is a subscription-based video on-demand streaming platform service available to Amazon Prime Members, launched in 2006 with over 200 million users globally. In 2016, the application was launched in India. It provides access to streaming content including Prime Originals, renting content, and purchasing add-on subscriptions. As a Prime Video subscriber, I decided to study, research and redesign the product to develop my UI/ UX skills.
Despite the great potential of the streaming platform, I discovered through reviews and user surveys & interviews that its users still don’t seem to be satisfied with the service and user experience. My intention with this study is to be able to identify and understand the possible reasons that could bring dissatisfaction to the users and from that, look for a way to improve their experience on the platform.
Also, as a part of my research I have upgraded their ‘Watch Party’ feature to provide the users with a much modern and better experience.
Roles & Skills
Research, User Flow, Information Architecture, Wireframing, Final Design & Prototyping.
Tools
Figma & Adobe Photoshop
Research
The initial phase of this project consisted of knowing and understanding the services already provided by the application, as well as exploring features and identifying the users and their pain points and then proposing solutions based on my research.
To begin the Discover phase, I started with conducting user research by surveying and interviewing existing streaming service users.
Some of the key insights gained from the Survey & Interviews conducted were:
- Users use mobile and laptop/computers as their preferred method of streaming.
- Netflix being the most popular streaming services used by users.
- Most of users stream with friends or family.
- Too much irrelevant content and cluttered data. Users are frustrated by the amount of time they spend on the application in order to find what to watch. They mentioned how the navigation and sub-headings are confusing. More than 70% of users spend more than 5–10 minutes finding something to watch.
- Recommendation’s data provided is irrelevant to the users watch preferences and history.
- Users have problem in distinguishing between prime content from non-prime content. They wish to have a clearer way to separate content that is for rent/purchase via other channels and free prime content.
- Language selection option is not provided in the application.
- The tiles headings are repetitive and irrelevant headings for search options.
Empathize
Following the interviews, it was possible to understand how the users behave with the application and what are their motivations and frustrations while using the application. I have further created two personas along with their user journey map.
Create
Design solutions and iteration ideas for the redesign according to the research:
· Account login page to be followed by a ‘Profile Creation’ page to have better recommendations for the users when the account is shared for multiple screens.
· Including a language selection page enables it for the user to view content only of a particular language and hence would improve the homepage recommendations for the user.
· Interface design upgrade for the homepage. Changes in the form of upgrade to the main carousel has been a direct play button has been added for the content being displayed on the carousel. A different section for new releases has been added on the homepage so as to inform the user about the latest movies and series releasing.
· Too much of repetitive content on the homepage creates clutter and confusion for the user. New sub-headings with better segregation have been updated on the page.
· Design for the content view screen has also been upgraded in accordance with latest design standards. Icons like watchlist, like, share & download have been rearranged in order to make them much more accessible for the user to approach and remove content clogging from the page.
· The icon design for the watch-party feature has been changed to now symbolize the kind of 360-degree gaming experience that it provides.
· The Search Page can have a better filter option to enable it for better and specific search results for the user.
· Channels page Sub-heading have been changed and the “Most Popular” tag from all the headings have been removed so that the channel name is the focus here. Also, for a better content segregation all the content visible on the page will be in the user’s preferred language. If the user wants to view content in another language, they can also select the language from the language tile instead of going to the setting to change the language.
· Design for the player screen has been upgraded, now including the brightness, volume adjustment and the screen lock feature on the screen.
· Watch-Party feature has been upgraded to make it much more fun for the user. The feature now includes for the user to select an ‘avatar’ for them and also select a location view they would like to watch the movie at. The feature finally provides the user a 3D experience of watching the film with friends where they can see their friend’s ‘avatar’ and vice-versa and interact using mic and chat box. The user can also zoom in to the movie screen to view just the movie or zoom out and interact with their friends sitting next to them.
Information Architecture
Wireframe Designs
Prototype
View complete Prototype
Key Takeaway
This was a challenging design and I have tried to focus on improving the experience of the users I researched. By designing small but useful features, I believe that the user would have a more engaging and enjoyable experience. Amazon Prime Video is a great streaming site with a vast library. As a upgrade, I would really like to see how Prime Video improves the watch-party experience and include AI in their application.
Thank you for reading!
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Note: This case study, research and UI screens are done by me for own study and not for any company.
If you want to know more about my recent work or complete Portfolio, email me at khanna.priyanshi13@gmail.com.
