YouTube Redesign Project

Background: Why I chose to do a redesign?

Occasionally throughout the pandemic, I've been enjoying live streams on Twitch. I have friends that stream on twitch and a few streamers that I enjoy watching. I'm not a heavy twitch user perhaps because I just got into it.

HOWEVER, I notice that I am more likely to watch more streams that are on YouTube. A few of the creators I watch have transistion to YouTube Live Streaming and I found that I used the platform more as I'm already on YouTube for regular upload videos.

The main goal of the redesign is top find the best way to let more users to know the growing platform of live streaming. Live streams on other platforms like TikTok or Instagram is a way for creators and viewers to connect and have more interaction. (In which during a pandemic it was the added human interaction we can get). Bringing more awareness to live streams will in hope open up creative ideas to connect with more people digitally.

Define the Problem

Designing for the mobile app first: With the over 70% of the watch time is from the mobile app, I decided to start the design with the mobile app first before moving to the mulitple device available for YouTube.

Over the last couple of years, the YouTube live streaming/ YouTube Gaming Space has transistion many major streamers from their biggest competitor, Twitch. At the time of the project research, LilyPichu and Myth had recently annouunced moving to YouTube Gaming live stream.

It would be sensible that the YouTube Live stream experience would be optimized for the growing community. There were issue with the massive community from the new streamers moving to the platform is that caused a blockage in the overall experience.

• No clear indications between uploaded videos and live stream space
• Discover live stream on YouTube is hard
• "My region" and "worldwide" live stream tags don't always work to recommend live streams for the users

Interviews: Major outcome from the usr interviews conduct was that that most users don't see themselves using the live stream on YouTube becuase it's harder to navigate. The whole system is not intuitive to use. Yes, you get reccommended live streams if you already watch similar content from a creator but there is no easy way to just browse live streams.

Issue with both Twitch and YouTube Live Stream is that they have poor discoverbility. Twitch is focused on long streaming hours and streamers with the most viewers. You would go on a category on Twitch and it would filter the most viewers stream and/or the longest ongoing stream.

YouTube "discoverbility" issue is not having a clear filter to look for live stream only. The directory of YouTube makes it hard for users to navigate just live streams. In most cases, my user reasearch interviews, many users had no idea that the YouTube live streaming platform existed. HOWEVER, the strong spot of YouTube is their algorithm of Shorts. Shorts and YouTube edited videos are suggested to users by personalized algorithms which leads to suggesting views new channels/ craetors. The greatest advantage of YouTube Shorts, TikTok videos and Instagram Reels is the quick short videos that many users consume uncousiously.

Many articles can prove that YouTube Shorts can help gain large numbers of views in a short amount of time. If you compare a creator's Shorts to their edited videos, you will likely see a higher viewing rate on Shorts. SOOOOOOO, many creators have taken advantage of this short-form vertical video and made content to boost their live stream platform.

The POWER of Shorts

This was an added thought after project (09/27/2022)

Over the year, Shorts has added various links. The most recent one is the direct link to a YouTube video. The Short is like a snippet of the edited video and it allows viewers to directly watch the video if they are interested.

This ia a powerful UI element because it can connect Shorts and edited videos together, bringing more views to the edited videos. Now, think about live streaming....

Creators like joshseki promotes their twitch in fun and interested TikTok videos and has gained more traffic that way.

Before (Current App)

• Current Youtube app bottom navigation has "Home, Shorts, Upload, Subscriptions, and Library"
• Unable to look up just live streams
• There are gaming categories but it is hidden in Explore > Gaming. Also removes all other genres like IRL or music streams
• There's no way to find smaller streamers by sorting watcher numbers

After 👀

• Users can access Live from the main home tab
• Categorizations of games or genre of live stream (ie Valorant, Lofi Music, VTubers)
• A live stream tab for users to easily view the channels they are members of and quick first glance of current lives.

The Project is still an ongoing thought in my head!!

I believe YouTube has a strong potential in the live streaming space and I will continue to bring my ideas and opinions. If you are interested in this project and would like to discuss more, reach out to me at hello.li.emily@gmail.com