Over the years I’ve used many different streaming apps to watch television shows and movies. Some of these platforms are lacking good design and UX (user experience), but I use them anyway because they have content I’m interested in. While I may continue to use certain streaming platforms because of their content libraries, it won’t stop me from making suggestions for improvement.
To that end, I’ve outlined 6 design patterns I believe should be standard across all streaming services.
Note: UX for streaming platforms can vary depending on the device being used. To simplify things, I’m going to be focusing on desktop/laptop browsers and Amazon Fire TV apps.
1. Quick ways to continue watching
A large part of streaming is binge-watching television shows — viewing multiple episodes back to back. There are other times though when new episodes are released weekly. Regardless, a common goal when using a streaming service is to continue watching something. Yet, with many platforms, it takes several clicks or scrolls to get to the “Continue Watching” section. I understand wanting to highlight new content I might be interested in, but immediately after that should be a section where I can quickly jump back into the content I’ve already begun.
On Netflix, I currently see a hero banner follows by rows of content for “East Asian Crime TV Shows” (no idea why), “Trending Now,” and “Popular on Netflix,” before arriving at a “Continue Watching” section way below the fold. The order and title of these rows can change from account to account, and day to day, but “Continue Watching” should not be so far down at any time.
HBO Max gets it right. Right after a rotating hero banner I always see a “Continue Watching” section, requiring minimal effort to get to.
2. Removing content I’m no longer interested in
Sometimes friends come over and use my Netflix account to watch an episode of a show I have no interest in continuing. Other times I may watch a few episodes of a new show before dropping it. And occasionally I’ll mistakenly click the wrong piece of content, like when I watched several minutes of Outlander on Netflix before I realized it was not Highlander.
All of these situations can contaminate a “Continue Watching” section, so there needs to always be a way to easily remove items. It’s surprising how uncommon this is. You can find options to remove items for some platforms in a browser, but it’s nearly non-existent in streaming apps.
Also, if I only played a few seconds or minutes of a video, it was likely a mistake or I didn’t like it so it should not appear under “Continued Watching” (sorry Outlander). And if I watch something and then thumbs down the content, I’m probably not going to continue watching it so that too should not show under “Continue Watching.” In the latter case, I wouldn’t mind first being asked if I’d like to remove it though — maybe I want to hate-watch it.
Continue reading “6 UX Guidelines for Video Streaming Platforms” on Medium.