How to share the moment when we are physically apart?
Creating an intimate social viewing experience on YouTube
Project type
Independent project
My role
UX/UI design
Project duration
6 weeks
Background
During the pandemic, many people that I know were remote or have been separated from their loved ones. To maintain social connections, especially in long-distance relationships, people increasingly seek ways to share experiences. Watching videos together helps replicate the shared experiences that are crucial for bonding. Interactive features like real-time chat and video calls can make viewing content more engaging and enjoyable. This social layer can transform passive watching into an active, communal experience.
As both a video-sharing and social media platform, YouTube offers features like commenting, sharing, and streaming, all of which have fostered various online communities. However, it remains challenging to recreate the intimate experience of watching YouTube videos together with friends or family who are physically far away. The success of similar features on platforms like Apple, Amazon Prime, and Hulu highlights a strong user preference and market need. This presents an opportunity to enhance remote socializing on YouTube by introducing a new feature that enables users to watch videos together and interact in real-time.
Problem
The rise in remote socializing due to global events like the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for digital solutions that enable real-time connections, including co-watching features. The success of similar features on other platforms highlights a gap on YouTube and presents an opportunity to introduce a seamless watch-together feature to create an intimate social viewing experience.
Solution
Adding a watch-together option to YouTube offers 3 key features to users:
Playback sync
Group chat
Group video call
Research
Understanding the market
I started researching the market by testing and comparing three video streaming services that offer the shared watching feature.
How can this feature benefit the business of YouTube?
Watch-together can start as an added feature to YouTube Premium as a way to motivate more users to subscribe to the paid service. It would be a great integration for the following reasons:
Premium offers a family plan of up to 6 members, so users who want to use this feature can sign up for the family plan to share the benefits
Premium users can also use this feature to listen to music together on YouTube Music
Ad-free would provide smooth playback and enhance the shared experience
Understanding the user
Quantitative research - survey
To learn more about people's watching habits, I created a survey to get insights and received 34 responses.
How often do you watch videos with family or friends?
How many people do you typically watch videos with?
In what way have you watched videos with others?
In what way have you watched videos with others?
Qualitative research - user interviews
I also talked with 5 potential users to gain direct input on their watching experience.
Research insights
The research findings showed the following insights:
Playback sync is the top priority and has been a major frustration point
82% surveyed think the ability to chat is important
4 out of 5 interviewed have used video call to watch content with others
For group size of smaller than 6 people, users prefer everyone can control without asking the host each time
What do people enjoy about watching together?
Identifying the target user
Ideation
Defining and prioritizing features
Features to be prioritized
Features to come later
Mapping out the critical user flows
Flow 1: start watching together with friends
Flow 2: control the video playback
Flow 3: interact with other people when watching
Turning flows into wireframes
Initiating the watch room
Chatting and video calling in the interaction window
Testing out the recommendations feature
Recommendations on YouTube play an important part in an individual’s watching experience. After discussion with mentor I explored 3 options to incorporate a recommendation list into the group watching experience.
Mobile wireframes
To explore how interactions work on mobile devices, I created the key wireframes below to illustrate both a regular mode and full screen mode.
Testing and iteration
Usability testing
To get feedback from potential users, I invited 5 participants to interact with the initial Figma prototype to complete 5 key task flows:
Start a watch room and admit friends into the room
Join a watch room
Send chat
Turn on video call
Add a recommended video to watch queue
Testing results are organized in the chart below:
During the discussion, participants raised doubts and questions about the recommendation list:
“I would already have a specific video in mind if I’m using this feature with my friends.”
“The list is kind of hidden in the panel, I don’t think I’ll click on it.”
“I like that a recommendation list shows me other videos that are related to the one we currently are watching. It would be nice to continue watching without leaving the room.”
“If someone clicks on the thumbnail (in the recommendations), will it play immediately?”
Iteration
Revision 1: revise where users can start/join a room
Revision 2: revise how recommendations appear
Before
Dedicated list in the interaction panel so users can view the recommendations at any time, however the interaction panel is overloaded and this could be distracting for the group interaction.
After
Remove the list from the interaction panel but keep the recommendations at the end of current video, so that users have the option to keep watching without leaving the room and without disrupting current video.
Revision 3: organize the interaction controls
Before
The top bar is overloaded with room information and icons
User controls are dispersed across the screen
“Leave” button is too prominent and not integrated
After
Group icons and fold the room information into “share” icon
Consolidate room controls on top and “my” controls on the bottom
Integrate “Leave” button as part of the interaction with less visual distinction.
Revised final design
Based on users' feedback and the latest iteration, I produced the final prototype that aligns more closely with users' needs.
desktop screens
Flow 1: start a watch room
Flow 2: join a watch room
Flow 3: send chat
Flow 4: start video call
Flow 5: switch video display mode
Mobile screens
Start/join from home screen
Video screen
Interaction - chat
Interaction - video call
Full screen mode - chat
Full screen mode - video call
Users reacted very positively overall for this added feature:
“It’s very intuitive and easy to navigate.”
“This is a cool feature, I really like this!”
“I would use this everyday with my boyfriend.”
Reflections
To take this project further, I would like to delve deeper into people's viewing behavior on YouTube specifically, and explore ways to better integrate YouTube's current features, such as comments and playlists, into the watch-together experience. YouTube’s smooth video synchronization across devices provides an opportunity to separate "watching" and "interacting" on different devices, such as watching on TV while interacting via mobile. This could reveal new and exciting interaction patterns to enhance the viewing experience.
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