YouTube Creators

Community Tab For Viewers By The Viewers

Case Study. UI/UX. UX Research. Application Design

Team

Independent


Role

Product Designer


Timeline

4 months



Skills & Tools

Figma, Interaction Design Visual Design, User Research, Prototyping, User Testing


PROJECT OVERVIEW


This case study aims to analyze an existing mobile app to implement a new feature in an unexplored design space. This feature is intended to develop a compelling design solution which aligns with current branding.


YouTubers, as content creators, are the essential backbone to the major popularity of the platform.

The long-term growth of content creators is very important as well as their relationship with their viewers. However, how viewers engage with their favorite Youtubers on the platform isn’t perfect. Users can find connecting with their favorite YouTubers to be particularly difficult.


The major design challenge is to address this gap to improve user engagement on the platform:

The Community Tab.

YouTube is the most popular video sharing platform in the world. Users can find connecting with their favorite YouTubers to be particularly difficult. Viewers feel video features, such as the like button & comment section, are not impactful and have limited interactions that only connects with fellow viewers.


The community tab feature on YouTube should already fulfill this niche on the platform. The Community Tab is a YouTube channel feature which allows creators to interact with their viewers with a variety of posts, with only creators being able to create posts for their audience.


However, while trying to use this feature, I found there are key factors leading this feature to be underutilized:

How Does The Community Tab Lose Impact?

.01

.02

.03

Poor Visibility

Limited Engagement

User Flow

How Are Online Communities Created On Other Platforms?

Fostering community is seen across multiple social media platforms. Users are capable of creating memorable, personal interactions within their cliques. Identifying the features which encourages user interaction helps to find possible solutions to keep viewers engaged with fellow viewers

Market Research

Social feed through forums catering to different user interests

Customizable user profiles for easier navigation across multiple forums

Subreddits as user generated & user moderated forums for shared community niches

Upvotes as positive feedback for engagement

Community members create posts with approval from moderators

Private user made servers to connect with members

Text & voice channels for communicating

Screen sharing & live streaming for additional socializing

Customizable user profiles for easier navigation across multiple servers

Private channels for professional settings to connect with other users

Supports multi-platform with other social media apps

Text-only communication only channel creators & moderators can create new channels

Customizable user profiles for easier navigation across multiple servers

Feature Comparisons

I used a feature comparison chart to further develop my insights from the app comparisons to the YouTube Community Tab. The feature comparison chart is a tool that allows us to compare notable app features between competitors. This method also helped me better understand the user's mental model with the app features

With this analysis in mind, the YouTube Community Tab leaves some considerable gaps compared to other forum-based platforms. This tab is missing notable features for navigation and visibility which would help make the user experience far more streamlined to the viewers.

User Research

After conducting the market research, I continued on to 5 semi-structured interviews to better understand the user needs on the YouTube app. Each participant has frequently used YouTube as long time viewers and previous experiences with other social media apps.


These interviews were crucial to understanding both user motivations and user flow for watching videos, subscribing to content creators to support their channel, and interacting with their favorite content. Here are the major takeaways from their responses:

What Is The Problem: The User Problem

After multiple rounds of user interviews, I was able to identify critical user problems for I found that some users found connecting with their preferred content creators was particularly difficult. I was able to identify the prominent issues users have with the community tab:

1) Users feel discouraged from leaving comments on videos for large content creators because they do not

want to interact with bot accounts instead of other viewers


2) Users get confused trying to engage with the Community Tab in between watching videos because it is

in a separate page on their channel that is hard to find


3) Users are annoyed with having to rely on other social media platforms that do not like in connect and interact

with their favorite content creators

How Might We:


1. How might we help make users' navigation to the community tab more accessible while scrolling?


2. How might we help both users and creators to create exclusive posts within their intended audience?


3. How might we engage users with their preferred communities from their favorite content creators?




BRAINSTORMING

After developing our problem space, I engaged in multiple rounds of brainstorming to iterate on possible solutions to address these user needs. This method was a great way to create a diverse ways to explore our solution space.

WIREFRAMES

Low-Fidelity Concept Ideation

Workflow

Medium Fidelity

I created sketch ideations for the low fidelity prototype using paper sketches for rapid iterations. The community tab feature should encourage user interaction within their preferred channels. As such, the updated version includes:


1. Both YouTubers and viewers can create community posts

2. Only subscribed viewers can make posts in content creator's channel

3. YouTubers can create subgroups for viewers to make new posts

The majority of the community tab’s content requirement already exists on the platform. Utilizing the same elements provides immediate familiarity for the user. The new elements such as subgroup profile picture, subgroup selection, and community icon provide quick access to viewing preferred content:

High Fidelity

As I wrapped up the design process, I was finally able to proceed with my high-fidelity prototype for the new Community Tab feature on YouTube app. It was important to keep the design elements as consistent as possible with the current branding to properly rate the user flow.


Using Figma, I was able to create a high-fidelity prototype to simulate the overall experience, for both scrolling and as a subscriber, through user testing. Thee user testing was vital to getting feedback about the overall functionality and user flow with the new feature.

The Final Design

Easy access to your community tab just by scrolling

It's easy to miss a post in the community tab, especially while scrolling for that one funny cat video.

View new post from your favorite communities with a quick tap of your finger! 

View your favorite YouTube channels & their community posts from your subscriptions

Instant access to your YouTube communities straight from your subpage. Using the new View Community option, quickly view your preferred subgroups for new posts without the hassle.

Create posts within your communities with fellow viewers or favorite YouTubers

Want to make your mark within the fanbase? Make a post to share with other viewers in your community. A great way to hit it off with your favorite content creator and other fans alike!

Reflection

I finalized the reworked community design tab managed to fit the niche that it was originally intended to fill. After multiple rounds of prototype testing, I was happy to find that users found the new additions both seamless and impactful. My design mentors were also very satisfied with the result and found the final design to be effective in expressing my user's goals.


This project challenged me to be comfortable with critiquing design and digging my heels to find a deeper solution. As such, the final result reflects  the community tab having it's own unique identity that brings both creators and viewers together for a positive impact.  

Thank you to my TAs, instructors, and peers from Introduction to Digital Product Design—your guidance, feedback, and encouragement helped me create a finished product that I'm proud of.


I am in no way affiliated with YouTube; this is a case study that was created as part of Cornell's Digital Product Design course.