The Process

0.0 Famiiarzing ourselves with the fandom space with literature

Before we started our research, the Netflix team recommended us some literature to further understand fan engagement and the different types of fans as they were going to be our primary users. Inspired by the book, Degrees of Fandom: Authenticity & Hierarchy in the Age of Media Convergence, we utilized their fan continuum to classify and better understand the fans we spoke to.

0.1 Key Insight

Participation in content is understood as a continuum where the practices that require the least amount of involvement is one on end and practices that require the most on the other.

0.2 Key Insight

Majority of fans of popular TV can be classified as participatory.

1.0 Getting to know our problem space

Given this understanding of fan classification, we sought to further familiarize ourselves with the scope. We primarily sought to understand what constitutes a good immersive and experiential experience. To do so we focused on:

1.1 Research methods

Secondary Research - 4 Areas of Focus

1.1 Key Insight

Shows can only gain meaning if it is relevant to fans themselves and fans can create depth to it.

Competitive Analysis - 8 Competitors

1.2 Key Insight

Designs for experiences should leave space for a user directed narrative.

User Interviews - 14 Interviewees

1.3 Key Insight

Many users engage using research to learn more about the show through actors/actresses, behind the scenes, and the creative process.

2.0 Understanding it all

With a lot of data and preconceived ideas and notions as personal users of Netflix and fans of shows, we decided to use a Grounded Theory approach. This approach allows us to set these preconceived ideas aside and give space for the research to shine.

3.0 Final Validations

To validate our findings and get some general numbers to help guide our designing, we also developed a mass survey that reached ~250 participants. Here are some of the insights we found:

4.0 Back to the Users

We developed three types of fans from our research as well as their journies to show their relational development with their shows and included their placement on the fan spectrum at the bottom:

5.0 Ideation

Once we understood had a good grasp of our users, we dived into ideation. Among the 4 of us, we ideated 36 potential solutions. In order to this massive array of ideas, we charted and ranked them on two scales:

business vs customer value

We defined “business value” as increase or decrease in engagement while customer value is just as is (how valuable the idea is to a customer). Because our problem scope is centered around engagement, we wanted to make sure we kept this concept in our focus while maintaining our human centered approach.

reach vs innovation

We wanted our solutions to cater towards all kinds of fans but also uphold Netflix’s values. To further evaluate our solutions, we charted them on a reach vs innovation matrix.

After we evaluated our ideas, we were able to narrow them down to 9 solutions. In order to contextualize our solutions, we ideated one feature for each solution that each persona would be interested in. We took special note of how we felt and our experience designing for each persona for each solution. Depending on the difficulty level of ideating, we were able to evaluate how well the solution can be personalized to our personas.

6.0 User Testing

To bring our users back into the equation and ground our ideas, we tested our top 6 solutions focusing on their engagement habits
with the solution and the show.

ISABEL ZHENG

ISABEL ZHENG

NETFLIX

Problem

“How might we create immersive and experiential content related experiences to increase fan engagement?”

Solution Preview

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