Student Project
UX / UI Design
Concept Development
For a student project we were asked to determine a product that we think would benefit from some extra research.
I chose to work on the Australian streaming service - Stan.
After some bad first hand experiences with the site and asking friends and family about their experiences, my hunch was that the organisation of the app was rigid and not as fluid as it could be.
Stan offers a large catalog of films, that aren’t necessarily easy to find. The user interface isn’t as straightforward as hoped and offers very limited organisation & categorisation - by genre, year or alphabetical order.This can lead to frustration with the app and users feeling unsatisfied with the movie they have chosen.
I started online desk research to develop a better understanding of users problems and interactions with the app, before conducting my own personal interviews with users about how they go about finding specific movies and their searching habits. It was important to hear their opinions & feelings about the app.
After researching other competitor streaming services to see their solutions and not being entirely happy with their results either, my recommendation was to reduce the amount of titles on the home page by introducing a restructure of the home page, giving it a more obvious way to display the genres, so they can’t be missed. From those genres you would be able to go further into specific genres/themes.
Another feature to be added was the updated ‘advanced search’ function in the NAV. It was added as an easy way to filter options and give the users a more precise and wanted outcome.
Users would be able to choose specific genres, classification ratings & release dates, as well as choosing how the titles are ordered - alphabetical or chronological.
Both of these features will keep the users interested in their search for the right title.
The top insights from the interviews were that the app was overwhelming with how many options it had, and that without the proper organisation users would miss out on so many titles. They also added that the search function was flawed and didn't always portray accurate results.
With those results I mapped out the ideal journey where users could log onto Stan, and choose the movie link in the NAV bar. From there they would see a secondary NAV bar with a series of filter boxes that users would go through and check off their specific preferences before being taken to their results and then also being able to order them how they preferred.
The initial sketches were created with a variety of different layouts in mind. I wanted to provide users with the most seamless path to choosing their title. I created a secondary NAV bar where the sorting functions would sit, so it would be familiar territory for the user without taking too much space.
With the sketches finalised, the wireframes were created into a clickable prototype, ready for the first round of user testing to get feedback on content, layout, interactions & flow.
The following is concept design.
The testing revealed that users felt the process was too long and not as straightforward as hoped.
Having to check off each individual item was a slog that restarted the search every time you selected an option.
With that information, the goal was to reduce time spent searching. The secondary NAV bar was redesigned to combine the “genre, release date & classification” into one giant filter bar, and have separated the “Sort by” drop down menu that would act independently.
A “Select all” function was added to the filter, and was set to “All” by default, making it easier for the user to save time whilst getting the best results,
The new filter bar would greatly impact the user flow by allowing users to quickly select their options in the one place and then arrange it with the "Sort by" menu.
After those changes had been implemented, another round of testing was conducted and the insights revealed that users noticed a lack of ‘search’ & ‘reset’ buttons - it had become unclear how to preform either of these operations. Therefore, those buttons were created, which would allow the users to use their common knowledge for where the search button would take them - to the results.
A “Reset” button was also added to make it quick and easy to start fresh. These two buttons would create more of an advanced browsing function.
The same users from the initial interviews trialed the prototype to make sure the interactions were all working accurately and the site flowed well in general. I received positive feedback, and the users were happy to see the progression.
This exploration was created for a university project and I don't have any plans to pursue it further.
You can try the Working Prototype
HERE