YOUTUBE REDESIGN
Personal Project
September - October 2015
BRIEF:
This project requires that you select 3 interfaces from a distinct delivery medium, a website, a mobile application (IOS, Android or Windows) and a digital interface of your choice (smartwatch or an ambient technology for example). Your task is to conduct a design evaluation of each system and select 1 item to redesign. The purpose of the redesign is to significantly improve its usability, aesthetic and interaction quality.
EVALUATING INTERFACES:
The 3 distinct interfaces that I selected to be evaluated for this section of the project were:
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Sky Sports - Andriod
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YouTube - Web Browser
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Dashboard - Xbox One
I then looked at each one of these interfaces individually and graded them based on their Usability, Aesthetics and Interaction Quality. I did this using Radar Charts based on my opinions and experiences with the interfaces to create a clear picture of the areas where the interfaces are succeeding, and to show the others where they're perhaps lacking in quality.
Each one of the interfaces provided a unique experience, to be expected. However, they also did some things in similar ways with regards to how they expect users to navigate them and what is and isn't on the screen at any one time, which was interesting and provided me with a lot to think about.
REDESIGNING YOUTUBE:
The interface that I have decided to improve is YouTube. I think that whilst it doesn’t have a lot of problems or problems as big as those found on the other interfaces, there is still the scope for significant improvements to be made to YouTube, in particular, the video player page.
Just as I did in the previous sections I divided the task of redesigning YouTube up into several categories, each one looking at different parts of the design:
Usability
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Utilize a more focused and tailored set of videos lists. For example "More From..." and "Similar To...". This will allow for people watching videos to choose whether they want to keep watching content from the creator they're currently watching or find other videos of a similar subject from different channels.
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Allow channels to put more emphasis on selected content when visiting them. Also allow them to make more use of the space that they have available to them, as a lot of it is being unused at the moment.
Aesthetics
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Update the page to make it have more consistency with YouTube players on other systems. YouTube apps have been evolving consistently on other platforms such as Android and iOS over the years, but the website version of YouTube has seen little or only minor incremental changes over the years. It would be nice to see it keep up with the other platforms.
Interaction Quality
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To better allow for direct interaction between the video player and selected Widgets and Web applications, such as "Turn Off the Lights" that allows for a more immersive viewing experience when watching on a desktop or laptop.
CREATING CONTINUITY:
The first thing that I began further investigating was how YouTube looks on other platforms and how to translate that over to the web. Looking into how they utilize horizontal space on their TV apps lead me to believe that this was a much better use of space, rather than the way the web works which is very much in the verticle space, which tends to leave a lot of white space.
Streamlining the video player and making information accessible to those who wish to view it is another feature that I have included. Rather than having the video title and description available for all to see and thus pushing parts of the page further down, this design hides this information on the player. Now it can be seen without users having to stop viewing the content they're watching and potentially disrupting the viewing experience.
Working out how to implement ways of allowing users to explore other areas of the site without having to stop watching the video they're currently watching was very fruitful as well, leading to the implementation of a mini player. This would allow for users to be able to scroll through the comments on the video and not have to sacrifice watching the video to do so. This is a feature that is used on the mobile version of the app. and on other websites so it makes sense to include it here.
Finally, I wanted to allow for users to be able to customise their channels more, to make it feel like it's a reflection of them and their content. Currently, as things stand everyone can add a banner to their channel, and that's it. So it doesn't matter if you're PewDiePie with 50+ Million Subscribers or Someone else, with 3 Subscribers. Those channels both have the same level of customisation and look largely the same. However, I have proposed taking a step back to how things used to be.
Back in the day, there was a period on YouTube around about 2009 when channels could be fully customisable giving content creators the ability to add themes and backgrounds as well as show and hide panels and features they didn't want. I feel like this would make the user experience much better and more personal because creators would be better able to cater their channel to their audience and allow for a much more interactive experience.
MORE SCREENS
