Designing conceptual features to improve adult animation discovery for fans on Netflix.
Netflix
TYPE
Product Innovation
Case Study
MY ROLE
UI/UX Design
User Research
Prototyping
TIMELINE
5 weeks
September - October 2022
CONTEXT
In my Netflix Studio course at UT, I was assigned to discover real-world Netflix issues relating to viewer habits and choices with a team of students. We were then prompted to ideate, prototype, test and present our solutions and findings to industry professionals (Netflix Product Designers and UX Researchers).
CHALLENGE
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.
For our Netflix Studio course, my team was prompted to choose an audience demographic and study their viewer habits in order to discover a prominent viewer issue niche to this audience.
We chose to look into fans of adult animation, a genre that despite having content on Netflix, is not generally listed by Netflix for browsing unless if one was to search it up. This prompted the most initial discussion, and pushed us to research more into it.
I conducted some research to better understand the audience’s and general populace’s perspective of adult animation through:
• compiling tweets from search queries of “adult animation”
• finding news articles from entertainment sources (Variety, Hollywood Reporter) discussing adult animation
• watching adult animation titles on Netflix (Cyberpunk Edgerunners, Devilman Crybaby)
• interviewing adult animation fans on their experiences with and motivations for watching adult
animation
WHAT WE FOUND
Audience
Fans mainly comprise of Gen Z and millennials that can “resonate with edgy humor”, but also wish to see more exploration of topics.
Mature Issues
Fans would choose to watch adult animation because of how “humorous, but also thoughtful” content could be. It offers fans “complex themes and subject matters that you can’t find in kid animation”.
Nostalgia
Many older fans were introduced to adult animation when they were much younger watching Adult Swim late at night, bringing nostalgia to those who even “grew up watching [their] favorite adult animation”.
Social Media Influence
Some fans believe that adult animation’s reach is widening through Internet culture as some credit their exposure to popular adult animation titles to seeing memes and discussion on social media.
Public Perception
Fans are conscious of the stigma of watching adult animation as public discussion often reduced adult animation content to be shallow, crude, and low-quality.
“Chill” First Time Recommendation
When asked if fans were to recommend adult animation content for a first-timer, fans suggest “something light- hearted and chill yet intriguing” such as Bob’s Burgers. They express sentiments of wanting to purposely share content that didn’t feed into the stereotype of adult animation.
FIRST ATTEMPT
With these initial insights, we looked into the issue of how the genre of adult animation was being perceived, believing that the lack of exposure of diverse adult animation content was the problem.
This took us to our original HMW question: how might we help viewers discover personally impactful content within the adult animation genre?
We ideated on several different solutions for this with individual crazy 8’s before reconvening and settling on the idea of filter categories within adult animation. To explore this solution, we created three variants for usability testing- one of which I was responsible for.
By offering some type of filtering categories within the genre of adult animation, viewers would be able to discover new kinds of adult animation content according to their preferences in sub-genres, moods, and languages.
I came up with and 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.
WHAT WE LEARNED
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.
INITIAL 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. Viewers are looking for opportunities of deeper discovery of the adult animation genre. 2. Meets the viewer’s interests. Viewers prefer content that still caters to their moods and tastes.
3. Quick and easy! Viewers love all things easily accessible and low barrier to understand and use.
REVISED PROBLEM STATEMENT
With these defined objectives in mind, we came to a new, refined HMW question to answer.
How might we offer an easy way for adult animation fans to discover content that explores their interests?
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.
To address this problem, I crafted for the viewer experience of browsing for new content to be quick, easy, and personal.
1. The curated bubble categories visible at the top allows viewers to filter their homepage recommendations.
2. The top recommendation headline under the selected category describes what kind of mood or taste it is recommended for the viewer.
3. The Why? button can be tapped for viewers to receive more context as to why they received the recommendation.
4. Viewers can take several actions with the recommendation: play it, add it for later, or reject it.
5. Reasoning behind the recommendation is presented in a simple card. This provides useful context,
such as matches in the viewer’s interests, tidbits about the content, and insight from similar viewers.
6. The Play button can be accessed in this recommendation card, taking viewers straight to the content.
To supplement this experience, we thought to offer a secondary screen that would serve as a convenient remote for viewers. With the various possible actions to take regarding the recommendation, the secondary screen catalyzes the execution of the desired action. This prevents the anticipated pain point of having to click through endlessly to reach the desired action.
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