UX Design for OTT Platforms: Creating Seamless Viewing Experiences on Mobile

Understanding the User Journey

Before you dive into design and optimization, take the time to create or review the user journey. The understanding you gain by doing so dictates many of your design decisions and ensures that your user experience meets users’ needs and expectations effectively. Let’s consider some key reasons to prioritize user-journey mapping.

Identifying Painpoints

There are two key types of painpoints to consider. First, what are the painpoints that your OTT platform addresses? Second, what are the most common painpoints users typically face when using OTT platforms in your industry?

If you haven’t already conducted user research or user interviews, now is the time to do so—before starting your OTT UX design project. Ask users the following questions:

• What are the main challenges you face when using OTT platforms?
• How do you typically discover new content on these platforms?
• What features or functionalities do you find most valuable in OTT services?
• What aspects of current OTT platforms frustrate you or need improvement?
• How important is personalization to your viewing experience?

Asking these questions can help you stay focused on the most important features. Packing in all possible features before launch might be tempting, but prioritizing what truly matters to your users is a better approach.

Optimizing Touchpoints

Map each user interaction with your product or service. How do users discover your brand online? When do they sign up for your OTT platform?

The user-journey mapping process helps you identify key touchpoints at which users interact with your platform, allowing you to optimize each step of their journey. Consider and map out the following user interactions, which comprise the steps of the user journey—or touchpoints:

• initial discovery—How do users first become aware of your OTT platform? This could be through social-media posts, search engines, or word-of-mouth recommendations.
• Web site or app visit—What is the user’s first impression when he lands on a Web site or app-store page? Consider the clarity of your value proposition and the ease of finding key information.
• sign-up process—Analyze the steps involved in creating an account. Is the process straightforward? Are there any potential friction points?
• content browsing—How do users navigate through your content library? Consider the effectiveness of your search function, content categorization, and recommendation system.
• content consumption—Examine the actual viewing experience. This includes video-playback quality, loading times, and the ease of controlling playback—play, pause, rewind, and fast-forward.
• post-viewing engagement—What options do users have after watching content? These could include rating systems, sharing capabilities, or suggestions for similar content.

For example, does the user discover your brand on a desktop, then download the mobile app on their phone? If your target audience mainly comprises mobile users, how might you optimize this journey?

This might seem like a lot at first, but it’s better to review all the steps of the user journey from the start rather than getting knee-deep in mobile optimizations only to realize that some features aren’t necessary because they’re not critical to the user journey or are infrequent touchpoints.

Personalizing the User Experience

While optimizing for different customer segments might seem crazy, personalizing the experience is smart, especially for power users. While power users might make up 20% of the entire user base, they could actually drive 80% of results. Enhancing their experience by adding visual elements such as including an Instagram feed on your Web site could increase their interactions and brand loyalty.

Consider segmenting your users based on factors such as the following:

• viewing habits on mobile
• content preferences
• subscription tiers
• accessibility needs

If you have free users, you might want to optimize their experience, which could eventually lead to more revenue or more people on your platform.

By understanding these key aspects of the user experience and journey mapping, you can optimize your OTT platform to create the best mobile experience.

Optimizing the Mobile OTT Experience

Now, let’s consider how you can start optimizing for mobile. While there are many UX design and technical considerations, we’ll look at the most important ones here. Note that your list of optimizations might be slightly different for different priorities, which depend on the user journey.

Simplified Content

The first and easiest step is to optimize your content. Always prioritize essential information and features. Types of content that you can simplify for the mobile experience include the following:

• video titles and descriptions—Keep titles concise and truncate longer descriptions.
• search results and recommendations—Display only essential information—for example, title and log line—to avoid cluttering the screen. Skip long descriptions.
• user profiles and account information—Prioritize key details and use expandable sections for less critical information
• content categories and genre labels—Use concise labels—for example, Action-Packed Science Fiction Adventures versus Sci-Fi Action—and consider using collapsible category menus.
• notification messages and alerts—Keep messages brief—ideally under 140 characters. Use nonintrusive display methods such as Toast messages or small overlays.

There are more optimizations to consider, so it’s best to go over every type of content and consider whether you could eliminate it on mobile. For content that must be there, figure out a way to shorten it.

Streamlined Content Discovery

The next important factor to consider is how users discover new content. Optimizing for this feature might have heavy technical requirements, but that shouldn’t stop you. Try to focus on things that your team could easily implement while building a technical infrastructure for continuous optimizations. Here are a few things to get you started:

• curated collections—Create themed playlists based on genres, moods, or current events.
• advanced search—Implement predictive text, autocomplete, and voice-search options.
• continue-watching messages—Place these prominently on the home screen, with a progress bar for each item.
• personalized recommendations—If you can, use machine learning (ML) to analyze users’ viewing habits and suggest relevant content. Coupling personalization with social-media content moderation ensures a positive experience for users as they engage with your platform, both on social media and within the app.
• asking users to decide—Provide an easy way for users to like or dislike content so you can show them more of what they’d like and less of what they’d dislike. Figure 3 provides an example.

The great thing about personalization is: the more data you have about users’ content-consumption behaviors, the better your recommendations become. As users consume more and more content, future recommendations become increasingly relevant.

Adaptive Video Playback

Adaptive video playback can make or break your OTT platform. That’s why it's so important to put a lot of thought into its optimization. If a video does not play right away, you’ll lose users instantly.

Specialized Professionals

Adaptive video playback is highly technical. You may need to collaborate with or hire the following specialized professionals:

• video-streaming expert—Who makes sure your videos can adjust their quality based on the viewer's Internet speed.
• mobile-app creator—Who builds the apps that play your videos on different phones and tablets.
• quality checker—Who tests how well videos play on various devices and Internet connections to make sure everything works perfectly.
• UX designer—Who creates easy-to-use controls and screens for viewers to choose the right video quality and enjoy watching.

By having these professionals collaborate, you can offer your audience a seamless and enjoyable way to watch your content on their mobile devices. If you’re not building an OTT platform from scratch, you could use a no-code platform such as Uscreen.

Adaptive Video Playback Checklist

Once you’ve got the team or tool in place, use this quick checklist to see what it takes to offer the best playback experience:

• Choose a reliable video-hosting platform or content-delivery network (CDN).
• Implement adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming, using protocols such as HLS (HTTP live streaming) or DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP).
• Encode videos at multiple quality levels and bitrates.
• Set up a video player that supports adaptive streaming.
• Implement automatic quality switching based on network conditions.
• Provide manual quality selection options for users.
• Optimize video compression to balance quality and file size.
• Implement efficient buffering strategies.

There are, of course, more things to consider. But these should be enough to provide the best possible viewing experience, especially if you’re just launching your app.

Fast Loading Times

Fast loading times are essential for keeping viewers happy on mobile devices. When your content loads quickly, users are more likely to stay engaged and keep watching. Here are some simple ways to speed things up:

• Optimize file sizes for different screens.
• Store your content on servers that are closer to your viewers for faster delivery.
• Simplify your app’s design to reduce loading time.

Remember, every second counts when it comes to keeping your audience’s attention. A smooth, fast-loading experience wows viewers and keeps them coming back for more.

Offline Viewing

According to a study by Penthera, 59% of consumers download content to watch offline at least once a month. That’s why including offline viewing is a must if you want to keep your users and subscribers happy. Here are some tips for optimizing your OTT platform for offline viewing:

• Implement efficient download management. Allow users to choose video quality for downloads to manage their storage space.
• Provide clear expiration dates. Inform users when downloaded content will expire or need to be refreshed.
• Enable background downloading. Allow users to download content while using another app.
• Implement smart download features. Automatically download the next episode of a series when on Wi-Fi.
• Optimize file compression. Use advanced compression techniques to reduce file sizes without compromising quality
• Provide offline recommendations. Suggest content for download based on users’ preferences and viewing history.

You might consider subscription tiers for offline viewing. For example, you could lock this feature for free users. In contrast, you could make more content available for download for the enjoyment of users with higher-tier subscriptions.

A Seamless Cross-Device Experience

While offline viewing is crucial for mobile users, it’s equally important to consider how your platform performs when users are online and switching between devices. According to a 2023 report by Statista, the average person worldwide owns approximately 3.6 connected devices. This number is even higher in developed countries, where individuals often have smartphones, tablets, notebook and desktop computers, and smart TVs.

Here are some simple tips for creating a seamless cross-device experience:

• Remember where users left off. Save that spot in videos so they can pick up viewing on any device.
• Keep things looking similar. Use the same colors and layouts on all devices so users feel at home.
• Sync watch lists and favorites. Let users access their saved content no matter what device they’re using.
• Make signing in easy. Use features such as Remember me or single sign-on to avoid constant logins.

By following these tips, you can make sure your users have a great experience no matter what device they’re using.

Touch-Optimized Controls

While most of the optimizations I’ve previously discussed are highly technical, this one is both a science and an art. You must understand the best place to place the buttons and how they should look on mobile. Plus, did you know that people hold their mobile devices in different ways? Figure 4 shows an example. (Editor’s note—Check out Steven Hoober’s series of articles on UXmatters that explain how users hold mobile devices: “Design for Fingers, Touch, and People.”)

Consider the following key factors when designing touch-optimized controls:

• button size and spacing—Ensure that buttons are large enough for easy tapping and have adequate spacing to prevent accidental clicks.
• gesture controls—Implement easy gestures such as swipe-to-seek or pinch-to-zoom for video playback.
• thumb-friendly layouts—Place important controls within easy reach of the user’s thumb, especially for one-handed use.

Design video-player controls and interactive elements that are easy to use on touchscreens, considering factors such as thumb reach and tap-target sizes.

Mobile-First Content

Since people frequently use their mobile devices to watch content, why not deliver mobile-friendly content from the get-go? Examples of mobile-first content include the following:

• vertical video content—These short-form videos are optimized for portrait-mode viewing.
• bite-sized episodes—These are 5–10 minute episodes that are designed for quick consumption during commutes or breaks.
• interactive stories—This choose-your-own-adventure style content leverages touchscreen capabilities.

For example, Netflix offers interactive short bursts of trivia content and meditation episodes from Headspace. While these are also available on large screens, they are best viewed on mobile devices.

Think about what kinds of mobile content you could serve specific members on your OTT platforms. You might be surprised by the many new possibilities for content!

Accessibility

Last, but not least, you must design with accessibility in mind. Implement features such as the following:

• closed captions—These provide content for people who speak a different language from that of the recorded audio.
• audio descriptions—These accommodate users with hearing impairments.
• adjustable text sizes—These accommodate users with visual impairments.

Plus, ensure that your app’s user interface is compatible with screen readers and other assistive technologies. While implementing these capabilities might require significant resources, so you might not address this during launch, you should build the foundation for adding them later.

Why Netflix Has the Best Mobile Viewing Experience

Hands down, Netflix has the best mobile viewing experience among OTT apps. Chances are that you’re already using Netflix, and the service can be a great inspiration to you. Here are a few reasons why Netflix is the best:

• adaptive streaming—Netflix’s mobile app uses adaptive bitrate streaming. This automatically adjusts video quality based on the user’s Internet connection.
• smart downloads—For series, Netflix offers a “Smart Downloads” feature that automatically deletes watched episodes and downloads the next episode when the user is connected to Wi-Fi.
• cross-device synchronization—Netflix seamlessly syncs viewing progress across devices. Users can start watching on their mobile device and continue from the same point on their TV or computer, as shown in Figure 5.

While Netflix serves as an excellent inspiration for mobile-viewing experiences, it’s important to remember that the company has vast resources at its disposal. Netflix has a large team of engineers who are dedicated solely to improving streaming quality and buffering.

For a smaller OTT platform, you might not have the same levels of resources, but you can still strive for excellence in your mobile experience. But this is why it’s so important to know your users and prioritize the features that would significantly impact their experience.

Bonus Advice: Update Often

Designing the best experience for viewing video on mobile isn’t a one-and-done deal. Keep gathering user-experience data and push updates regularly. The top metrics you should keep an eye on include the following:

• user engagement—These include metrics such as session duration, screen views per session, and retention rate. These indicators help you understand how compelling and sticky your app is for users.
• performance—These metrics focus on the technical aspects of your app’s operation such as app load time, video start time, and buffering ratio.
• user behaviors—These metrics let you analyze how users navigate and utilize your app and include click-through rates, drop-off points, and search usage.
• technical stability—These metrics let you evaluate your app’s stability and efficiency and include crash rates, app-not-responding (ANR) rates, and battery usage.

Use these metrics to help you decide what features to prioritize for updates. Aim for a biweekly or monthly update schedule for minor improvements, with quarterly updates for major features, ensuring each update brings tangible value to users.

Wrapping Up

While this article has covered a lot about UX design for OTT platforms, this involves many technical factors, not just design. For users to have the best mobile-viewing experience, you must consider the user journey, technical requirements, and key metrics.

Your work isn’t done after launch. You’ll always need to update your OTT platform so users can continue to have the best experience. If there’s one takeaway, it’s to focus on your users’ experience and behaviors. This lets you prioritize key features that directly affect their user experience.