Fitness Playlist
Playlist feature for Netflix content
A seamless workout playlist for the fitness content you didn’t know Netflix and Nike linked up to make available; along with settings for accountability partners and reminders.
My Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
2 weeks
Tools Used
Figma
Maze
Figjam
Miro
Google Forms
Final Screens
About the Project
December 2022 Netflix launched fitness content with Nike Training Club. 11 different series, with more to come, all including multiple episodes. This is the first time Netflix has carried fitness content.
Unless you already know it’s there, it’s impossible to find. Users have to do a manual search to find it unless it somehow appears on your home screen algorithm. Fitness is not even a listed in categories. So how do users find, interact and remain engaged with this kind of content?
Fitness content is a great way to attract new users, engage existing users, create a Netflix community and/or gamify the experience globally or within your shared network and can serve as an accountability partner to benefit users in reaching their fitness goals.
Focus
I added a feature to build a custom playlist focusing only on the available fitness content. The ability to get access to a variety of great workouts is really cool but it’s hard to explore all of that content if you don’t know it exists and once you do know it exists you have to remember each episode or scroll through each series to find your favorite. Since fitness content is the kind you will want to repeat often, watch non sequentially, and locate on the fly, this is a great place to introduce the concept of building a custom playlist on Netflix. With a playlist function users will be able to create a playlist of their favorites that can be accessed with a click. Engagement through reminders can create Netflix as an accountability partner.
Time to Stretch
I conducted surveys and interviews to find out
how they would use the new content
how the UI can be streamlined and,
what aspects would keep them engaged
The “fitness queue” feature intends foremost on giving users quick access to the fitness items each time they need it with fewer clicks and no manual searching. Users reported intent to use the content while in the gym without feeling overwhelmed by other content.
I conducted 7 user surveys and 5 remote user interviews via remote session to get to know my user base better. I needed to know if those who already were frequent exercisers would be inclined to use this content and if those who did not exercise, but instead were more sedentary would be interested in using fitness content in the middle of binge-watching.
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Would you use a streaming platform for workouts, with or without your own gym membership?
If doing workouts via streaming with a product like Netflix what would help you stick to your goals?
Are you more likely to go on a hike or spend a day watching movies in your downtime?
How often do you use the watchlist/saved queue and how do you interact with it?
What frustrations do you experience when using Netflix?
Goals
Users said that they would likely stream fitness content from their phones while in the gym or at home and hoping not to get distracted along the way. The ability to quickly access the content makes that a priority. After ideating on some new theories I’d also like to implement some functions that maintain user engagement. Gamifying the fitness content and enabling sharing act as an accountability partner and reminders can push less active users to re-engage with fitness content that’s at their fingertips. As a priority, getting users familiar with the fitness content — and the fitness content that they want and prefer — is the MVP of the product. Nothing worse than getting pushed to do HIIT workouts when you only love gentle yoga.
What about the watchlist? Most users save items but say they ‘never return to watch’ and often forget it’s there. Additionally, users feel more likely to use the content if they can set reminder notifications, can choose favorites or have an accountability partner along the way.
Unfortunately, many users express frustration with Netflix’s UI in general, it’s noisy and overwhelming, but as this is a feature addition and not a complete design overhaul, we work with what we’ve got, and try to simplify the design along the way.
Helping the User Focus
Navigating Slowdowns
In the ideation phase, I knew I wanted to reduce cognitive overload for the user and make a cleaner introduction to the home screen when introducing the feature of a fitness playlist, but Netflix did that for me.
Because I was designing a feature add and branding was complete, I skipped mid-fidelity and went straight to high-fidelity designing.
Just as I was rounding out initial screen designs Netflix pushed an update that made their home screen easier on the eyes. This revamp of the design was so close to what I was designing for the feature release could only tweak my design to match the new Netflix frames and revisited my research. This didn’t affect my feature but it did change my redesign.
Before project start
Mid feature add
Revisting Affinity Maps
With the design addressed, I went back to my affinity maps to focus on how to solve different but related problems for my user.
They wanted to be able to
control their content better
make fewer decisions
get reminders
track progress
Hi Fidelity, User Testing and Rapid Iteration
I conducted 10 Unmoderated Surveys via Maze and, 5 Moderated Interviews, In-Person and Remote
The first iteration before user testing mimicked Netflix’s home screen as it appears now, the information beneath the title indicates the genre and feel of the content. However, users stumbled with understanding what exactly the Fitness Queue did despite the guidance in the test.
It’s vague.
What is “Feel Good Fitness?”
What is a “Fit Queue”?
And how do I - as a user - know what to do with it?
How can this change to inform the user and encourage them to explore?
In rapid iteration, this space adapts to inform the user how to interact with this new feature as shown in the first image below.
Additionally, without strong interactions in the fitness pages the user got lost more often than not. This was due to lack of feedback in interactions up against the version 1 deadline.
Similarly, the settings page lacked enough control for the users who wanted to be able to set more specific reminders, which I updated in version 2.
Wrap Up
I had to both widen my thinking and narrow the scope of my project for this one. I needed to reimagine how the flow of tasks the user would experience would happen. Most important - how does the user know this option exists? How do we introduce them to it for the first time? And then how do they make use of this time and time again?
I realized the time constraints may not allow all my ideas to be possible. I spent some time looking at must-haves to get to the MVP.
Nice-to-haves are gamifying this content, allowing the user to share this content with friends, or see their friends’ scores on a workout history screen.
Taking a step back to re-consider all the hopes of a project was important because I can continue testing and iterating on an MVP to optimize for the user.
What did I learn?
Having a lot of content means needing great UI to reduce user frustration.
Users have existing pain points they want solved and skipping over those problems to implement new features might drive them away unless those new features are useful, solve a problem, and are engaging.
I had to be cautious that I was not exacerbating current problems simply because they already exist. To make my version of an existing product easy to use while providing enough detail that the user can tailor to their desires, hence filling their need gap and keeping them coming back
What’s Next?
Continue Phase 2 testing to confirm interactions are clear enough to the user
Build out Picture-in-Picture prototype
Create a point system for fitness content to gamify content and ‘compete’ against family and friends
Create on screen pop-up for between episode fitness and settings options
This project was conceptualized and created as coursework for Design Lab UX Academy