NETFLIX | MOBILE TEAM
Bridging the Divide: Netflix Episodes List Overhaul
This study walks through the evolution from a disjointed, platform-specific user experience to a unified and intuitive design. It highlights especially the balance between user needs, technical constraints, and business goals, all aimed at enhancing the overall streaming experience on mobile devices.
Introduction
The Netflix Episodes List on iOS and Android devices used to look and feel distinctly different, resembling a contentious sibling rivalry. This created a jarring experience for users across and between platforms. Recognizing the need for consistency, we undertook the humble task of redesigning the episodes list to ensure a seamless user experience across devices.
The Challenge
Legacy code. Legacy UI and UX. And, transition to a new design system.
Navigating the complexities of legacy Android code and the limitations imposed by Android's technical specifications presented a unique challenge in this project. However, while working between the Android and iOS engineering teams, this endeavor also brought to light certain iOS limitations.
Product Goal
How might we create an in-player episode list which both improves the experience, yet scales for diversity of content on user devices?
A Real Problem
Some problems among the Old Episodes List were: the costly engineering overheads between devices, a convoluted UX experience for Android users, and a disparity in features between iOS and Android devices– namely the lack of a “download episode” button.
Episodes List on Android. Note the vertical menu, and the low-density content spread. In every section of the app, users are more accustomed to a high-density content spread– a feature of the platform which has stood it's time in metrics likes CTR.
Meaningful Design
The business goal for this experience was to increase the usability of the episode list whilst keeping or increasing streaming hours. The New Episodes List offers many useful features not found in the previous iteration. These include: butter-smooth horizontal scrolling, current episode callout for context and meaning, a drop-down consistent with the existing patterns in design systems, and more meaning through the inclusion of meaningful metadata– e.g. show description per episode, red progress bars under episode thumbnails for at-glance episode location or progress, and episode length in hour to minute format which is particularly useful for the non-linear content (the bucket majority of Netflix shows).
As well, an episode-level download button!
As well, an episode-level download button!
The Constraint
One of the biggest challenges was building for high-growth + high-download + high-commute markets in developing countries. This initiative was aptly titled Aim-Low.
The largest opportunities lay in developing countries that have high mobile usage due to a number of socioeconomic and cultural factors. One country in this bucket was India, where Android usage outweighs iOS usage by landslide and is a high-growth market. Within the Android bucket, high-end devices with high-end internet are all but commodity.
The largest opportunities lay in developing countries that have high mobile usage due to a number of socioeconomic and cultural factors. One country in this bucket was India, where Android usage outweighs iOS usage by landslide and is a high-growth market. Within the Android bucket, high-end devices with high-end internet are all but commodity.
In the kano-style graph above, we can see how in certain markets simply are not advantageous for Netflix to be focused on. One such market is the “high device functionality → high internet bandwidth” market. These markets are first-world markets where subscriber saturation has been reached with the exception of late adoptors or “laggards”– namely countries like the United States, Canada, England, etc.
Another key challenge was navigating the “Stakeholder Kitchen-Sink”. With so many hands on deck, expectations and scope could easily snowball.
Another key challenge was navigating the “Stakeholder Kitchen-Sink”. With so many hands on deck, expectations and scope could easily snowball.
Managing Stakeholder Relationships
Among the challenge of navigation stakeholder relationships and expectations were challenges of device diversity. On Android, the fragmented user experiences calls for an almost responsive style design that would scale from the smallest Android form factor to flagship. Speaking to fragmented experiences further, content is as well by no means monolithic in architecture. A series like Love, Death, and Robots might have one season with 12 episodes, but a series like the Turkish Ertugrul might have multiple seasons with over 70 episodes in a single season.
This practical reality does not yet exist on the Netflix Kids platform, but it is this inherently personable and smooth scaled-artifact of a user experience that is being carefully tinkered with by product designers and researchers behind the tall glass doors of the Netflix Inc., Los Gatos campus. And it is the thought of this scaled-artifact experience which brought about my consideration in testing new paradigms of interaction between children and their favorite characters.
This practical reality does not yet exist on the Netflix Kids platform, but it is this inherently personable and smooth scaled-artifact of a user experience that is being carefully tinkered with by product designers and researchers behind the tall glass doors of the Netflix Inc., Los Gatos campus. And it is the thought of this scaled-artifact experience which brought about my consideration in testing new paradigms of interaction between children and their favorite characters.
Solutions Discovery
Given the challenges of managing the “kitchen-sink” of stakeholders, a definitive learning experience during the solution discovery for this product experience was learning to press the brakes on unnecessary exploration requested by individual stakeholders. As well, learning to meet early and often to seek high-alignment also became key to managing a wide range of stakeholders in the future.
Solutions Discovery: Artifact exploring high metadata layouts.
Solutions Discovery: Artifact exploring low density layouts.
Ship It!
The new navigation paradigm between the Netflix iOS and Android platforms resulted in a streaming net increase for both New to Device (NTD) members and Tenured Members of the service. The positive signal amounted to about an increase in streaming by a total of 234,000 per NTD-Phase (a cycle at every 28 days) in total for markets on the Android platform.
The final solution.