Watch Party Mode for YouTube

Scenario

Metrics to improve

• Adoption rate: The percentage of YouTube users who use Watch Party Mode regularly. This can be tracked by the number of users who host or join at least one Watch Party session per week.
• Average session length: The average duration of Watch Party sessions. Longer session times suggest higher engagement and enjoyment of the feature.
• Session frequency: How often users are hosting or joining Watch Party sessions. High frequency indicates that the feature is becoming a regular part of users' YouTube experience.
• Engagement with chat and reactions: How many participants are using the live chat or emoji reactions during Watch Parties. High engagement in these features shows users are interacting and enjoying the social aspects.
• Invitation and share rate: Measure how frequently users share Watch Party invitations with others via social media, email, or messaging platforms. Higher rates indicate excitement and promotion by users.

UX Objectives

• Synchronized viewing: Enable users to watch YouTube videos in perfect sync with others, regardless of their physical location.
• Real-time interaction: Provide options for users to chat (text and voice) during the Watch Party to discuss and react to the video in real-time.
• Easy party setup and joining: Create a seamless experience for starting and joining Watch Parties, with minimal friction or setup steps.
• Privacy and control: Offer hosts control over the Watch Party, including managing participants, pausing/resuming the video for everyone, and ensuring a safe, enjoyable viewing environment.
• Cross-platform functionality: Ensure that users can participate in Watch Parties on desktop and mobile devices with consistent functionality.
• Align with YouTube's design language: Use existing YouTube interface to inform the look and feel, as well as UX of the new experience.

Tasks / Scope

• Desk research
• • Research streaming services and social media live sessions (facebook, instagram, youtube). Compare UX solutions and create a comparison table.
  • Analyze YouTube’s UX solutions, especially when it comes to live streaming and chat functionality. Join a live stream as a participant, and crate your own live session.
• User research
• • Talk to 5 users of live streaming platforms (organizers and participants). You can source them online or from your friends and family. Find out what their flow is, how they use the tools, what they use and why, what they like about the products they use, and what could be improved.
  • Prepare a research scenario to help you perform the interviews.
  • Sum up your results and create a summary of key findings.
  • Prepare problem statements and user stories based on your research results.
• Low-fidelity exploration
• • Create low-fidelity designs to explore different ways of approaching the problem. Choose 2 leading ideas and use digital tools, like Figma or Excalidraw, to finalize those sketches.
  • (Optional) Get feedback from other Designers or people you interviewed to choose the better solution to move forward with.
• High-fidelity design
• • Create pixel perfect high-fidelity mockups for your chosen idea.
  • Follow YouTube’s visual language and UX patterns.
  • Create a clickable prototype that you’ll use for usability testing for one platform (preferably web). Suggested minimal scope: discovering the watch party, joining, interacting with other participant, leaving the party, organizing a watch party.
• Usability testing
• • Test your prototype with 5-6 people. You can meet them in person or use video conferencing to perform this research.
  • Prepare a usability testing plan. You can use this template.
  • Take notes from your interviews, and identify key areas to improve.
  • Summarize your usability testing in a 1-2 page long document.
  • Make corrections to your design based on research findings.
• Measuring success
• • Examine how you would measure the success of this project. What metrics would you track to ensure that your designs perform well.

Acceptance criteria

• Platform compatibility: iOS, Android, Web.
• Synchronized video playback: Videos must play simultaneously for all participants in a Watch Party. Consider how to trigger the playback and inform users about it.
• Discovering a Watch Party: How users are invited to the party, how they join, are there public watch parties (consider limit of participants).
• Easy Party setup: Users must be able to create and invite others to a Watch Party within a few simple steps.
• Cross-platform functionality: Watch Parties must work consistently across desktop (web) and mobile platforms (iOS, Android), with all core features available on both.
• Real-time chat: A live chat window must be available for all participants to communicate while watching, with options for text, emoji reactions, and (optionally) voice chat and video chat.
• Host controls: Hosts should have the ability to manage playback and participants, ensuring control over the Watch Party environment.
• Privacy settings: Watch Parties must offer both private and public modes, with hosts determining the participant access level.

Nice-to-have

• Integrated polling or voting: Allow participants to vote on which video to watch next or other in-party decisions through integrated polls or thumbs-up/thumbs-down options.
• Watch Party highlights: Provide a tool for users to save highlights or key moments from the Watch Party that can be shared after the session.
• Scheduled Watch Parties: Offer scheduling functionality so users can plan Watch Parties in advance and send out automatic invitations and reminders.
• Interactive features: Include interactive features such as quizzes or trivia related to the content being watched, which participants can engage with during or after the video.
• Reaction overlays: Implement a feature where emoji reactions (like hearts, thumbs up, etc.) can float across the screen as participants react to moments in the video.