Amazon Prime video player - Understanding User Needs
Project Description :
How convenient is the streaming video player for Amazon prime video for its users? Amazon prime video is an on-demand video streaming service. It offers television shows and films for rent or purchase and a selection of Amazon Studios original content and licensed acquisitions included in the Amazon's Prime subscription. With work from home deemed the norm and millions under home quarantine, there is a subsequent increase globally in the consumption of online services but does the service provide users a hassle-free experience and a rich media player features?
In my perspective, the Prime video player does not provide features that are present in a basic media player as commonly seen as on rival streaming services. Specifically, the unnecessary IMDB plugin that shows fun facts and cast details that covers up half of the screen as well as the absence of screen lock is quite frustrating provided the whole app lagged a bit.
There are plenty of other features I’ve heard around my interviewees that posed issues for them out of which some of them even frustrated their use to an extent that they had to cancel their membership to the product. From what bothered them to what would actually benefit them, there’s a list of possible outcomes. Therefore, I believe it is well suited to discuss over a period of one hour or more.
P01 - Participant 1 and P02 - Participant 2
Direct Quotations:
P01: "Touch gesture are intuitive but lacks gesture for volume and brightness on the screen."
P02: "X-ray feature strips off the fun since it shows spoilers and unnecessary facts about the arts and not the character of the movie."
P01: " X-ray is annoying cause I prefer suspension of disbelief."
P01: "There is limited content in my native language."
P02: " While binge watching after a season it stops streaming. Didn't even ask to continue and I had to select next season to continue."
Observations:
P01: Missing features - Touch gestures and Screen Lock.
P01: Playback and prompt issues while binge watching and re-watch.
P02: Content low for specific countries.
P02: Disable/ Enable toggle for X-Ray feature.
P01: Customization freedom preferred.
Factual Statements:
P02: There seems to be an error in the recommendation algorithm for this user.
P01: For easy control and accessibility touch gestures for volume and brightness can boost the experience.
P02: X-Ray seem to be cluttering causing loss of screen real estate and causing users to open tabs by accidental touch on them.
P01: Shows error codes while playing a video sometimes that user had hard time to resolve.
P02: There seem to be inconvenience in watching between seasons.
Others:
P02: "It would be nice to filter out content by language."
It was pointed out by P02 that the absence of selection of video quality is huge downer.
For P01, the X-Ray would be better fit and enjoyable towards the end of the video.
In case of subtitles, I think distinguishable character mention and color for specific characters would provide better readability and understanding.
P02 mentioned the following "It was easy to cast onto other devices no matter iPhone to Android TV to enjoy movies with my family. It was pretty easy to switch."
But this wasn't the same for P01 who never used casting cause of lack of setup.
It was interesting to notice that the app was glitching when dealing with interruptions likes calls.
During the data extraction I think it’s worth mentioning that mostly three design heuristics of Nielsen’s that are (1) User control and Freedom (2) Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors and (3) Aesthetic and minimalist design were violated. Firstly, it was observed that the features provided are either invisible or less intuitive enough for the users to figure out on their own. This was seen when the participant P01 said that he/she never changed the way the subtitles looked because the person didn’t know that the feature existed. There are further more instances that showed users were unaware of the same in case of casting. They were also frustrated by lack of features like touch gestures for brightness, volume and choice of video quality that were commonly seen in other competing platforms. This was stated by both the participants P01 and P02.
Secondly the screen felt cluttered and restricted for most the users because of the appearance of X-Ray features provided by IMDB which was considered obsolete for most of them while some preferred it towards the end credits of the video. Most users also experienced difficulty in resolving errors that appeared now and then with codes that didn’t provide enough information about the issue that failed in helping the user to solve it on their own.
I would recommend redefining the screen with touch features for brightness and volume and screen lock. Also X-Ray toggles that give users the freedom to use the X-Ray according to their convenience. Features can be made visible by giving them an on boarding for new users introducing them all the features and where to find and use them. This would be a great help for users of all ages to get their way around the app. It would be nothing significant but we should know details matter to a great extent in user experience that could increase most active users (MAU). This would also benefit in preventing making errors and errors could be refined to user understandable sentences rather than letting them waiting for an update or cleaning from recents.
In conclusion, the video player plays a vital role in the overall user experience that could be elevated with minute but significant changes around the screen and other intuitive features as mentioned above. I’m thankful for the participants and the team that helped to draw prominent observations from the interviews and affinity note. This is not the end as designing involves constant evolving for better and outstanding user experience.
