Understanding the user experience of a subscription based streaming service, Amazon Prime Video

AAYUSHI JAIN
6 min readApr 15, 2023

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In today’s market of over-the-top (OTT) streaming services, it can be challenging for consumers to choose a platform that best suits their entertainment needs. With a plethora of options available, consumers in India are spoilt for choice which they select based on their specific preferences and provides a seamless and satisfying entertainment experience.

After a long day of work, consumers often seek a relaxing and immersive entertainment experience that meets their preferences. However, with so many options, it becomes essential to consider factors such as content quality, user interface, pricing, and availability of content. Platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ Hotstar have emerged as leading players in the Indian market, catering to a diverse range of entertainment preferences.

Project Overview

This project focuses on evaluating the user experience of the Prime Video mobile application, specifically the process of surfing and finding desired content to watch. Prime Video is part of the Amazon Prime membership, which offers additional services like Prime Delivery, Amazon Music, shopping, and reading benefits. Through this project, I have analysed the user’s journey while using the Prime Video app and identified areas for improvement. Based on these findings, I have redesigned certain features of the app to enhance the user experience. The ultimate goal of this project is to ensure that users have a seamless and satisfying experience while using the Prime Video app.

About Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Prime Video is a subscription-based streaming service offered by Amazon. It allows users to watch movies, TV shows, and original content produced by Amazon Studios.

Services offered by Prime Video:

  1. Streaming of movies and TV shows
  2. Downloading for offline viewing
  3. Multiple device support
  4. Multiple subscription plans
  5. Parental controls
  6. X-Ray feature
  7. Alexa integration

Defining the project

Business Objectives:

  • Improve the user experience of the mobile phone application
  • Improve in-app navigation, i.e., browsing and searching for content

Scope:

Improvement of the App User Interface: Redesign certain features of the app to enhance user experience. Improve the overall visual appeal and usability of the app.

Study User Flow and Enhance It: Analyse user behavior and preferences while using the app. Identify areas of improvement to enhance the user flow.

Target Audience:

  • College Students and Office-Going People
  • Individuals who have a subscription plan for Amazon Prime Video
  • Enthusiastic about consuming video content

Defining the User: This project aims to redesign the Amazon Prime Video application for office-going individuals who want to quickly and easily find content to watch without spending too much time browsing through the app.

Secondary Research

Examining User Feedback

(User feedback from Google Play store)

Pain Points Identified:
1. Mobile application not user friendly, hard to navigate
2. Jumps episodes or seasons while watching TV Series
3. Difficult to adjust brightness while watching a video (Brightness indicator missing)
4. Watch List is in profile settings
5. Even after subscribing to Prime Video, “Rent or Buy” content is displayed very often disrupting the smooth user experience

Prime Video Application Analysis

(UI Audit of Prime Video)

UX audit conducted on Prime Video mobile application. The following laws were observed:

  • Aesthetic-Usability Law: The app’s dark background adds a level of sophistication and is in line with its competitors.
  • Hick’s Law: Providing a large number of options on the homepage can increase the task duration, and displaying paid/rent content to subscribers can make the task of making a choice more difficult.
  • Jakob’s Law: The app follows this law in many areas, such as kids’ profile, smart downloads, but can improve in areas such as using vertical title cards instead of horizontal and reducing the number of steps to select a movie/TV show. The find button does not adhere to this law.
  • Law of Common Region and Law of Proximity are followed throughout the application.
  • Miller’s Law is not followed when selecting a movie/TV show, as the steps sometimes exceed nine and can be shortened.
  • Overall, the app’s color and text hierarchy are also in order.

Cloudscape Design system was built for and is used by Amazon Web Services(AWS) for all its products and services.

Apart from this, while scrolling through the application, “My List” feature was not defined, Movies and shows listed on google weren't always accurate while using the app. The Find Button is present on the bottom right of the screen and is often hidden by my thumb. Live TV and Store occupy central space in the bottom navigation bar but are rarely in use.

By comparing the User interfaces of different OTT mobile applications, we can better understand the differences and the similarities.

Comparative Analysis of Disney+ Hotstar, Netflix and Prime Video

According to market research firm Sensor Tower, Hotstar has more than 161 million monthly subscribers in India who use its mobile apps compared to MX Player’s 78 million, Amazon Video’s 28.1 million, and Netflix’s 15.5 million. Hence, there’s a scope for Prime Video to attract more users that consume content on their smart phones by enhancing its UI.

User Persona and Empathy Mapping

User Persona of Kashish, Age 25 was carefully crafted after conducting user interview to better understand the user. Kashish is an avid movie and series watcher and uses Prime Video regularly. The User persona is followed by Empathy mapping to better understand what a user, in this case Kashish, expects from the application.

Empathy map for the same user persona was created.

(Empathy Map of Kashish)

User Journey Map

After understanding the pain points and gain points of the user, a user journey map was curated to understand how a user navigates through Prime Video mobile application. It shows how users behave when searching for content on the application and what steps they go through. We can find valuable opportunities for design improvements based on user pain points.

(User journey map)

Pain Points from User Journey map
The user is using the application on their mobile phone and come across the following problems which searching for content.

  • Login page has two step sign-in
  • Homepage is cluttered. Paid/rent content is distracting the user. TV Shows and movies are combined together in too many unorganized categories. Landscape tiles occupy too much space on a mobile screen.
  • The find (or search) feature is in the bottom right corner which sometimes gets hidden under the user’s thumb.
  • Loading between different pages takes up a time and the screen goes almost blank during this time.
  • Video pauses when notification bar is dragged down, there is no brightness control or speed settings. Minimize or exit video streaming is a task and there is no gesture for rewind or forward video.

With the research so far and considering the pain points, the below screens are made.

Information Architecture

Information architecture focuses on the content’s structure, organization, and labeling. With a strong information architecture, users will be able to understand and navigate the digital environment quickly and intuitively, find what they need and accomplish what they set out to do

Initial Sketches

Considering all the pain points from above, the following sketches were made.

Mid-Fidelity Wire frames

After creating mid-fidelity wire-frames, usability testing will be done to know how user interacts and if the design is understood by users without creating cognitive load. Once the wire frames cross the usability testing the visual design is generated for the application.

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