Netflix Live Concert Feature: Why every brilliant feature idea is not a brilliant business decision?

This article is intended to look at a UI project about already existing and highly adopted app and incorporate a new feature into the existing product. For this project, adding a live concert watching feature was studied to adopt into Netflix product.

“LIVE”

Live button was attached next to the main categories in the navigation bar as it would be as essential as the existing categories of Netflix Product. Users should be given the opportunity to recall for such an important feature.

RESPECTING THE EXISTING UI ELEMENTS OF THE PRODUCT

Integrating a new feature requires the responsibility to respect the existing style of the product. Netflix as having a very consistent UI structure, is not the easiest product in this case.

For real time happening live concert events, users should be informed in advance as this would be a gathering activity in real time. How might we arrange a calendar for the user’s view respecting the product UI? Well, not an easy one for Netflix as it has no numbering organization to filter the content. My first trial failed for this reason. Adding the calendar system in the user interface of the product didn’t work with the existing branding. Interface looked overloaded with the new components.

After usability testing and feedback collection I applied the current filtering system with the name of the months, sacrificing the date specification.

PROTOTYPE

Besides it was a brilliant idea to be brought up, Netflix’s vice president of product innovation Todd Yellin said:

“Music? No, I don’t see that happening.”

“It’s funny — we’re pretty monomaniacal as a company,” explained Yellin.”We wanna be great at what we do. There are different companies with different approaches. Some companies are into the vast portfolio, diversified, into all kinds of things. We want to be the best video storytelling company in the world. That is our goal.” (TrustedReviews)

CEO of Netflix Reed Hastings on the other hand, answered the questions about live content:

“We’re not trying to meet all needs”

“Sports is really good in the moment. So you want to watch the game, but the afterlife of a given show is quite small,” adding that it’s the binge-viewing experience that is transformative.

“We’re not trying to meet all needs,” Hastings said. “So Amazon’s business strategy is super broad — meet all needs. we can’t try to be them. We’re never going to be as good as them at what they’re trying to be. What we can be is the emotional connection brand — like HBO or Netflix. So super-focused on one thing that people are very passionate about.” Hastings said Wednesday at Recode’s Code Conference

Reverse researching

Data I conducted supported the business decision of Netflix aligning with the user needs.

Netflix Users voted for enriching the existing video content rather than growing the context of the product.

See full research: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1YABz2m9kGJFCTvftffQEXXCGKsxSEIvSzsic8N_Wc2s/edit#responses

Take aways & Next Steps

UX Strategy is a plan-of-action on how to make sure that the User Experience of a product is aligned with the business’s objectives.

A strategy that a system of achievable goals and visions that work together to align the team around desired outcomes for the business and the customers. It is the “Big Picture.” It is a high-level plan to achieve one or more business goals under conditions of uncertainty.

Therefore, we as designers should know the business goals and balance them with the user needs.

What if?

What if Netflix, as the world’s leading streaming entertainment service with over 167 million paid memberships in over 190 countries, faces with a high demand of live content from its users who already pay for accessing the content? Shall business goals be adjusted in order to keep the balance with the user needs in such case? I’m super passionate about figuring this out and planning to study as a future case.