For this design project, my team and I investigated different domestic settings to understand how individuals and families adapted to home isolation during the beginning of the COVID-19 era.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, public-health experts were concerned about an epidemic of loneliness in the U.S. The coronavirus has exacerbated that problem, with most face-to-face socializing for people still under lockdown orders indefinitely limited to members of their own households. For the 35.7 million Americans who live alone, that means no meaningful social contact at all, potentially for months on end.

Technology has emerged as an imperfect solution. Video-chat platforms like Zoom are surging in popularity, and nearly every social media network is billing itself as a way to stay connected with friends virtually. Instagram in March introduced a new feature that lets friends view posts together over video chat, specifically to foster bonding during COVID-19 isolation. Telecom companies like Samsung have donated smart devices to help people in quarantine stay connected.

The Context

During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many reported heightened feelings of loneliness and isolation from their friends and loved ones.

How do people combat the feeling of loneliness and social isolation during quarantine?

Problem Space & Motivations

Secondary Research

We discovered that remotely watching video programs together while connected by video-mediated communication is engaging, fun, and fosters social bonds between the participants, and that these results are stronger with increased fidelity of the communication media

In a study* on distanced video sharing, 96% of participants reported using video chat applications (e.g., Skype, FaceTime, Google+ Hangouts) at least once or twice a year – 27% using them on a weekly basis.

“It is fun because you can comment and talk about things that are happening. [My study partner] and I watched a lot of tv together in college and it really reminded me of that experience.”

Through our team's personal experiences and observations of others with these problems, we saw that one of the main outlets focused our attention on media sharing and watching films and TV shows together as a way to be safely social and bolster feelings of togetherness and connection.

Primary Research

In addition to this secondary research, we also collected primary research in the form of interviews and a questionnaire to further assess our specific target audience: college students and their various home isolation situations. Feelings of isolation have impacted young adults especially hard, as this demographic was already more impacted by loneliness before the pandemic.

Taking these insights from user’s video watching habits and preferences, we built out a framework of features for our app to streamline the process and better connect the experience across friends and family.

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We discovered two more barriers to media sharing experiences...

01 Platform Confusion

02 Coordinating Group Decisions

What platforms are available?
How do we access theses platforms?
Which one is right for our group?
What features does each platform offer?
What are the differences?

When is everyone available?
What content does everyone want to watch?
Who is available?

Competitive Analysis

Since many screen sharing platforms, web based extensions, apps, and other software were both readily available and on the rise during the onset of COVID-19, people were confused by the plethora of options and had difficulty knowing which platform to choose.

‍We decided that rather than making our own screen sharing app, we could combine some of the existing features to create a social conduit to more easily facilitate shared video watching experiences.

Onboarding

Seamless experience providing guidance for the main functions of the app. Allows you to populate the homepage with media curated to your tastes.

Media Library & Recommendations

Complete media library of different movie or TV show options that you or your friends might want to watch together.

Selection Process

Eliminating the bane of all friend groups- indecision. The voting process allows everyone’s preferences to be heard and considered before a final selection is made.

Friends & Groups

Connect with your friends and loved ones with ease by adding them to your friends. You can create groups and schedule viewings with them. Chat about your movie night plans!

Platform Selection

There are so many different platforms to choose from with so many varied features, it’s hard to pick. Which one is right for your group preferences?

With our platform selection feature, this confusion is completely eliminated.

Scheduling

Easily block out availabilities and cross coordinate with your friends to find a common date and time. No more tedious back and forth!

Difficulty coordinating group video watching is one of the main barriers to making it happen. This scheduling feature makes it easy and simple to spend more time watching and less time coordinating.

Concept Development

Taking these insights from user’s video watching habits and preferences, we built out a media sharing experience with framework of features for our app to streamline the process and better connect the experience across friends and family.

We iterated on several sketches and wireframes to figure out how best to layout our features.

Testing It Out

Once we had developed our low fidelity prototype, we ran a series of user tests such as task walkthroughs and interviews to see how they would initially respond to our app. Through these, we discovered several key ways to improve our prototype when developing our high fidelity mockup.

We also presented our low fidelity prototype to our project mentor and peer groups consisting of students. We took their insights and main feedback and incorporated it into our final high fidelity design.

Notes on our interviews, user tasks, and walkthroughs

Here are some of the main sections of our prototype, with the incorporated feedback and analysis leading to key changes in our final prototype.

Much of the feedback on the lofi prototype was how confusing the home was. We changed to a Recommended page with Movies and TV. Friends have a large priority in the Friends Favorites and Recently Watched on the Front page.

Home Page

The initial group page and decision feature was not very apparent and most participants were confused as to what they meant. They are also not as visually outstanding meaning they don’t stand out. The swiping feature is not familiar with the audiences we are aiming for. So either we introduce better onboarding for the feature or move to a more widely known one. We also added a feature where you can add choices to the Voting. The visual elements are also more matching to the visual style guide. There was much more info about the function and explanation to make it clear to the user.

Voting Function

The filter function was very cluttered and not visually appealing. We also added titles at the top of every page for easier navigation in UX. Also cleaned up of the platform descriptions. The platform tags allow easier decision of the platform and transparency.

Platform Page

From the feedback we got, we developed our high fidelity prototype and ran a final round of usability testing and interviews to see how our prototype would be received by the target audience.

Within our final round of user testing, 3/4 users cited consistent user flows and ease of navigation, and 4/4 found the voting feature helpful in making group decisions.

"I felt like I had choices and could weigh in on those choices."

The exploration of different group viewing platforms was also received positively.

"I liked how many options there were, I felt like I had a good selection."
"I was familiar with some options and unfamiliar with others, which was good for discovery."

Our app was able to tackle the confusion of different screen sharing platforms while making scheduling and viewing easier!

"I think watching stuff with my friends over Zoom is fun, but a little confusing to set up, so I think this app would solve a lot of those issues."

Style Guide & Branding

We sought to create a simple interface with limited color palette, which highlights the movie posters and allows the users to intuitively connect with the functionality of the app.

Our mood board, tone words, color palette, and font selections in our style guide.

The goal of our color palette is to be bold and catch the eye, and to fit in with the themes of watching movies with others.

For fonts, we went with Sans Serif styles for a clean and simple look. Titles and headings were in Neutra, a font inspired by the Skyfall movie poster. Body text is in Neue Montreal, a more standard font. Of the fonts we tried, Neue Montreal complemented Neutra the best. The font is easy to read, adding to the app’s clean and simple look.

Roll Credits!

And as the curtains close on this cinematic project, what is there to be learned?

Working with a more generally applicable user group has its blessings and curses. During development, it allowed us to test with and talk to a larger audience of people, however when it came to deciding features and how those are to be used and placed, the lack of specificity didn't give us much to work off of which resulted in a more generic functionality.

What the Process Taught Me

This team project was focused on developing an entire prototype for an app we ideated and created ourselves. As my first venture into app creation from start to finish and there was a lot that went into the process and so many details that you don’t realize can be a problem until they are.

Throughout this project, my attention to detail definitely improved. Mediating between different skillsets, visual strengths, and overall perspectives on human-centered design made for a more well-rounded and rich experience.

Overall, we were able to tackle our goal with success and I'm proud of what we created!

What the Team Taught Me

Fiona Feng