CONTENT DOWNLOAD

UX Walkthrough
& Critique
September 14, 2018
AVAILABLE
TOUCHPOINTS

Android app ✓
Tablet version ✓
iOS app ✓
Tablet version ?
Web app ✓
Desktop app

Windows ✗
macOS ✗
Smart TV app ✓
SCOPE
UX DEVICE
1. Browsing titles
Cherry Mobile Flare S6
2. Saving titles for
consumption later
3. Starting downloads OS
4. Tracking download
progress Android 7.0 (Nougat)
5. Controlling download
queue
6. Managing downloaded APP VERSION
titles 6.11.0 build 29552
7. Toggling download
settings
HIGH-LEVEL
SCHEMAS
• Downloads are segregated into a separate list-style queue constrained by the
device storage
• Order of titles on the queue is based on when they were added – oldest
at the top, newest at the bottom
• Titles that a user wishes to watch or download later may be saved to their My
List, a “personal” channel that appears on the Home tab
• One must go inside each title’s page in order to start downloading the movie
or one of the episodes
• Only one title can be actively downloaded at once
• An ongoing download may be paused or cancelled; queued downloads may
be cancelled
• Download progress may be tracked anywhere – whether inside or outside the
app
• Downloaded titles may be deleted one-by-one or many at once
• Toggling what video quality you want to download is through a global setting;
not on a per-title basis
• User may select if they prefer to store downloads in either their Internal
storage or SD card (if available)
 6.11.0 build 29552

1 Browsing titles for download

Masthead Category Carousels

Houses 1 featured title updated

once a week

Cover art for each title changes

into different versions multiple
times
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1 Browsing titles for download

CRITIQUE
Category filters at the top may not
be as noticeable especially if and
when the Masthead posters
Masthead becomes a lot more busy visually
Display of Category filter bar each
time one navigates upwards on this
page from the bottom ensures that
anyone who has gone through most
or all of the category carousels
already is given ”new” tools to look Category Carousels
for other shows

Full-width and almost full-

height in-your-face
Masthead effectively
highlights Netflix’s marquee
title for the week
If you’re a regular Netflix user,
seeing this for the whole week
gets somewhat tiring and makes
one wish it would update on a
slightly more frequent cadence
Making the 3 pertinent
call-to-actions available
right at the user’s
fingertips makes it even
more effective to enable
the user to engage with
the title
Ensuring that ¼ of the width
of the fourth title’s cover art is
always visible gives the
affordance that this category’s
row may be swiped left and
right and houses a lot more
titles
Users that may find it
inconvenient to browse by
swiping left and right on each
category (e.g. finds it nausea-
inducing) are not given a
choice to browse in a more
typical swipe-up-and-down-
the-page manner

Careful selection and

execution of the There are a lot of red-
Masthead poster is colored posters on the
needed to ensure that library that will likely hide
all these text will still be or be camouflaged
visible – otherwise, on against by this ‘NEW
light-colored posters, EPISODES’ label
readability will be
sacrificeds

Partial inclusion of the first 4 titles of
My List on the page gives the
affordance that the page has more
content below and thus the user
should swipe down to explore
'Continue Watching’ section could be a double-edged
sword – an effective reminder for those who exited
watching a title but truly meant to get back to watching
it, but somewhat annoying to those who do not want to
finish watching those
Use of portrait-style cover art, creating the image of long, vertical
liens as you navigate through the page, emphasizes the illusion that
even on a relatively smaller phone the page has great height and
thus the user is more compelled to explore what is below (vs. a
landscape-style orientation where the horizontal orientation could
create a more claustrophobic feeling)
 6.11.0 build 29552

1 Browsing titles for download

Titles whose names are same
Keyword Search to the keyword but not on the
Voice search
library

Cast to screen

Most relevant results displayed

first
 6.11.0 build 29552

1 Browsing titles for download

Keyword Search

Guide for what can be used

to search is helpful to set
expectations

First-time users may be disoriented or have

Very awkward placement of
screencasting functionality
misaligned expectations on this – these are not titles
Unclear what relevance the
available on Netflix but since most users would tend
titles past the first 2-4 have
to just gloss over any headings, the big text captures
with the search keyword
attention more and might make users think that
these are titles that can be found on Netflix
 6.11.0 build 29552

1 Browsing titles for download

Category Filters
 6.11.0 build 29552

1 Browsing titles for download

CRITIQUE

Category Filters

Placement makes a lot of sense if the

user is in the mode to either search for
Placement makes a lot of sense if the
something very specific or more
user is in the mode to either search for
general like a genre
something very specific or more general
like a genre

At the same time, these could potentially

be mistaken for a search history at first
glance but Netflix ensured it wouldn’t be
by making the text centered
 6.11.0 build 29552

2 Saving titles for consumption later

From the title’s page

Toast notification appears Last added title pushed to the

whenever adding or removing start of the list
 6.11.0 build 29552

2 Saving titles for consumption later

CRITIQUE
Being able to play the first episode (and the
next episodes I haven’t watched) just by
tapping on the play button here and not From the title’s page
even needing to go to the episode list is a
great way to streamline and kickstart the
user’s watching session

Especially for TV shows, the sequence of
the buttons makes sense to communicate
from left to right – adding to My List being
the most important so that the user is
always reminded first to be subscribed to
this and continue binging
While the My List category is
prominently displayed in the app, first-
time users of not such high technical
proficiency might still wonder where
My List is located
Placing the My List category at
the very top of the page is an
effective reminder to each user
of titles they have previously
expressed intent to watch
 6.11.0 build 29552

2 Saving titles for consumption later

From the ‘Coming Soon’ (trailers) tab

Release date

Trailers automatically play

whenever they become the Will NOT appear on My List yet
viewport’s focus until stated release date
 6.11.0 build 29552

2 Saving titles for consumption later

CRITIQUE
Each time you enter this page, the first trailer on the
top of the page won’t play automatically so it looks
more like just a static image especially since the play From the ‘Coming Soon’ (trailers) tab
button camouflaged onto the background. Thus
scrolling down and the other trailers auto-playing
was also a bit of a shock at first

Release date

Auto-play of trailers as you swipe down the

Having a tab specifically for trailers is a
compelling reminder that the service always
has something new coming for the user
page is both compelling and annoying
depending on how well the recommendation is.
Also, encountering each new playback
significantly slowed down the phone while it
was being used
Not being able to see the title added to My List
right away was somewhat worrying and could
easily be perceived as a bug, especially since
how the release date affects how it is added to
My List wasn’t made clear
 6.11.0 build 29552

3 Starting downloads

From the movie’s page

Download being Download

prepared ongoing
 6.11.0 build 29552

3 Starting downloads
CRITIQUE

From the movie’s page

Download being Download

prepared ongoing

For iOS users, the pie progress indicator is a very

familiar schema given that’s how all apps are
downloaded. However, for Android, it’s not entirely
something traditionally used so for users of low
technical proficiency this might be an unfamiliar
way to look at download progress
 6.11.0 build 29552

3 Starting downloads

From the TV show’s page

Download
queued
 6.11.0 build 29552

4 Tracking download progress

Notifications drawer
Bottom navigation Inside 'Downloads’ tab
(out-of-app)

Download progress of ALL Progress for only one title

queued downloads shown even if multiple queued
 6.11.0 build 29552

4 Tracking download progress

CRITIQUE
Notifications drawer
Bottom navigation Inside 'Downloads’ tab
(out-of-app)

Being able to know when all queued downloads are Helpful reminder to motivate the user to fill up
done even if not actually on the Downloads tab is his/her Downloads page until they no longer see
helpful to know when one can start watching and this button
binging already
 6.11.0 build 29552

5 Controlling download queue

Pausing ongoing downloads

Pauses downloads completely,

next ones in queue won’t start
 6.11.0 build 29552

5 Controlling download queue

CRITIQUE

Pausing ongoing downloads

May be unintuitive for [most] to tap on the pie Helpful tool to guide the user as to where the rest
progress indicator in order to manage the of the episodes of this TV show are and not have
download queue to find it manually from the main browsing page
 6.11.0 build 29552

5 Controlling download queue

Starting download of another title

Download
paused

Downloading
 6.11.0 build 29552

5 Controlling download queue

CRITIQUE

Starting download of another title

Download
paused

Downloading

May be unintuitive for [most] to tap on the pie

progress indicator in order to manage the
download queue
 6.11.0 build 29552

5 Controlling download queue

Cancelling downloads
 iPhone

Controlling
download queue
(only cancelling is allowed)
 6.11.0 build 29552

6 Managing downloaded titles

Deleting one-by-one
 6.11.0 build 29552

6 Managing downloaded titles

CRITIQUE

Deleting one-by-one

May be unintuitive for [most] to tap on the pie

progress indicator in order to manage the
download queue
 6.11.0 build 29552

6 Managing downloaded titles

CRITIQUE

Deleting many at once Delete all

selected
 6.11.0 build 29552

6 Managing downloaded titles

Changing the color of the header
ensures it captures the attention of
Deleting many at once the user and they would know what to
Delete all
do once this mode is triggered
selected

Since this mode is constrained depending on where you

accessed it (i.e. if you accessed it from inside the TV shows
subpage then you can only select multiple episodes and not
select other movies as well) then it’s additional effort to be able
to really customize what I can choose to delete depending on
which ones I’ve watched already, etc.
 6.11.0 build 29552

Smart Downloads
(for Android only)
 6.11.0 build 29552

7 Toggling download settings

Accessing settings
 6.11.0 build 29552

7 Toggling download settings

Video Quality Setting Download Location Setting

The quality downloaded Where the title(s) is/are stored

depends on which setting was depends on which setting was
active when you selected it active when you downloaded it
 6.11.0 build 29552

7 Toggling download settings

Video Quality Setting Download Location Setting

Decision to have this become a download setting/mode

May be prone to misinterpretation if selecting an option means
instead of something the user has to select each time they
I will be migrating my existing files to another location or it will
select something for download makes complete sense so that
just start storing new downloads to the newly selected location
there is no unnecessary decision-making each time
 iPhone

Controlling
download queue
(only cancelling is allowed)
TAKEAWAYS
👍
• Clear information architecture
and distinction between
movies and TV series on
‘Downloads’ tab
• Addition of ‘view more
episodes’ inside downloaded
TV series’ page allows the
user to easily look for more
episodes of the title
• Download progress is visible
anywhere (in- and out-of-app)
• Flexibility in deleting shows
👎
• Ambiguous download
statuses