STARZ

Lead Product Designer

Throughout the streaming landscape, research suggests that users can suffer decision paralysis when deciding what to watch. The longer it takes a user to find something to watch, the less value they see in their streaming product’s content library. Additionally, for STARZ streaming subscribers, a percentage of users base their subscription period on whenever “their shows” are in season. When this demographic of users don’t have any of their preferred shows in season, they cancel.

How can we get this type of user to stay engaged with STARZ year round?

STARZ research found that autoplaying content has lead to a significant (though confidential) increase in engagement and product exploration. Therefore, on a platform with a percentage of users that are seasonal, how can an autoplay feature mend the gap between the seasonal viewer and STARZ’s rich content library? Specifically, we wanted a feature that: 

1. 1. Encouraged passive viewing via an autoplay feature.
   2. Surfaced content from our extensive library that may be difficult to discover with the current UI.
   3. Provided a quick and engaging way to surface content to users.
   4. Allowed discovery of titles beyond our top originals and blockbusters.
   5. Exclusive to our TV app (for MVP).

After exploring the competitive landscape, we quickly discovered that no feature currently existed that addressed all of our goals. Therefore, to accomplish our objectives, we would need to explore creating an experience that does not directly rely on something users have seen or used before and, therefore, our users would likely have no direct cognitive pattern to refer to when interacting with this feature. Therefore, the question became:

How can we create a completely new, non-referential experience for a user that meets our complex objectives, introduces minimal friction, and encourages repeat usage?

Once we had a user flow, I needed to decide how to design and present each step in the decision tree as well as how to present transitions and microanimations. Once drafts, conversations, presentations and internal testing concluded, a design and prototype was born.

After a substantial period of user flow and interaction design refinement, it was time to put a prototype of our product to the test. Was this a product people would actually use to find content? And was the experience intuitive? To find out, we had a set of users complete a survey as well as participate in an in-person usability test via a beta build where users completed 8 tasks related to basic Spotlight functionality. Users also provided a difficulty rating, thoughts tied to specific tasks, and general feedback.

Percent of Users Successful in Performing Task:
“Success” was measured according to what was considered a “quick and reasonable amount of time” to complete a task.

While a user’s ability to navigate this feature was generally considered successful, some of the most interesting and notable feedback came from our user’s more general feedback during survey and in-person testing. Two big areas for improvement that came from this feedback included:

• Re-evaluation of button labels: Button labels throughout the product were not always intuitive enough as is for users to have a clear vision of where they are going when they selected something.
• Consideration for a side navigation: The STARZ product at this time still had a top navigation and finding a way to access a side navigation during the Spotlight experience felt more intuitive to users than the top navigation they were forced to access at this time.

While there was subtle room for improvement, early testing proved that Spotlight was deemed navigable, useful and enjoyable by a testing audience who were trying it for the first time. Additionally, nearly all users said that this was a feature that they would be willing and eager to use again. Great news for the team to continue moving forward with an MVP.

If research and testing revealed anything, it was that the core tenet to the success of this feature is visual simplicity. Without design simplicity, navigating a user through the path they need to take to find a title that’s right for them could quickly become a daunting task instead of an exploratory and exciting experience. In actuality, the more a user interacts and explores Spotlight, the faster they will discover that there are more than a few ways to navigate it, but on the surface, the path appears simple. Minimal navigation cues, clean design and simple microanimations are all intentional design tactics to help give this user a sense of place while fulfilling the goal of content discovery and content engagement.

While the true power of Spotlight comes from using a remote to interact with and explore the product, below is a animation demo walk-through of the feature experience from genre selection to movie detail.