Case Study: Watch & Learn

College + Netflix Adobe Creative Jam

A 48 hour Adobe XD design jam with over 800 teams competing. This challenge took place between June 22, 2020 and June 26, 2020. Designers from Netflix would provide feedback to the top 10 projects.

Here is our final prototype

The Team

Anna Stubler and Nicole Freeman

The Challenge

Design a third-party desktop web site or desktop app (not Netflix-branded) where the community can celebrate shared stories together through communal and authentic experiences.

With only 48 hours, we knew that time management and quickly identifying a solution that answers the challenge prompt would be crucial to our success. We knew we wouldn’t have too much time for data research and testing. The first day would be scheduled mainly for planning while the second would be focused on prototype development.

Initial Ideation

We decided to tackle this challenge with a streaming service that would focus on social issues and activism. 

The Problem

We observed that many young people use social media for social activism, though finding a place to constructively build empathy and share perspectives doesn’t always go smoothly on some of the more popular platforms. 

The Users

For our target audience, we wanted to focus on young adults that want to learn more about issues that they are passionate about.

We made two personas so we could find pain points and the features that would best fit the needs of our target audience. Emily, our primary persona, seeks knowledge while John, our secondary persona, seeks inspiration.

Affinity Diagram

With the personas developed, we started brainstorming and prioritizing features. 

The Solution

Watch & Learn was the desktop app we designed. We wanted to use film and television streaming as a starting point for our audience to learn, engage, and begin their conversations with others. Users can explore titles based on the issues and themes they tackle. Learning resources, interactive features, and a chat system would offer users a more engaging experience. 

Competitive Analysis

We looked at popular streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Twitch, and HBO. We also paid attention to the chat features on Netflix Party (now Teleparty) and the content recommendation features of TEDx. For moderation bot tools, we looked at Discord.

High-Fidelity Prototype

Nicole did a great job quickly structuring the app and its navigation. I focused on the visual identity of Watch & Learn and I designed how the interactive features and resources would play into the watching experience. 

Anna and I spent a lot of time making sure that the content of the app would properly communicate the purpose of the platform, pointing users in the right direction. We also worked on making sure the prototype would communicate all stages of the movie watching experience so prototype users would have a good idea of how all of the features would work with each other.

The discussion features came with challenges. We had several solutions to keep the discourse constructive. Upon entering a watch party, a pop-up would have users agree to conversational guidelines written by Nicole. A report feature would minimize the amount of users breaking those guidelines. A bot would start the discussion with a prompt. Additionally, we chose to use the word “Stories” instead of “Reviews” for user written responses to films. This would keep the conversation focused on sharing different perspectives.

Here is our final prototype

Results

Out of the 612 teams that submitted projects, Watch & Learn earned a place in the top 10 finals and we got to hear some great feedback from the judges. They liked the conversational safeguards and they felt the additional friction of the pop-up screen was likely worth it. There were two places in the app where they felt the educational elements could have been more clear or expanded on. Overall, we were excited with the results of our first Adobe Creative Jam and we learned a lot.