Overview
Autoplay is the function that causes a video or audio file to play automatically without action from a user. This experience is so disliked among users that both Chrome and Safari no longer support autoplay with sound. From a business standpoint, autoplay can be a powerful tool because it grabs attention and brings in revenue with ad sales, but as browsers limit autoplay functionality, companies must adapt to deliver a delightful and engaging video user experience.
Tools
Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Docs, usertesting.com
Skills
Competitive Analysis, UX Research, User Testing
Problem
From a user experience standpoint, there is nothing more annoying than opening a page and having unexpected sound start blaring from your speakers. Thankfully, the days of this experience are coming to an end. The new problem becomes finding a way to get users interested and engaged in video content without shoving it in their face.
Need
To get users to watch and interact with online video content
To provide an engaging user experience
Solution
An alternative video engagement technique set out to replace unmuted autoplay
Process
Research
I scoped and conducted a competitive analysis to see how 17 of CNBC’s direct and indirect competitors handle autoplay and other features that affect the video user experience across their sites.
Identify competitors
Using data from ComScore, we identified CNBC’s top direct competitors. The other eight were a variety of news and media streaming sites that provide some sort of a video experience.
Analyze and compare content and strategies
On each site, I looked at autoplay functionality in addition to a variety of factors that contribute to the user’s video watching experience. Some of these factors include play button placement, continuous play (a video automatically playing after one ends), and whether or not a dockable player is enabled. Since different pages require different video experiences, I examined each of these factors across the three main pages on media sites: homepage, video page, and article page.
Find areas for improvement
After getting a better understanding of what our competitors were doing, I started thinking about what and how they could be doing better. This helped me form a hypothesis for how CNBC should handle autoplay.
User Testing
Following the competitive analysis, I designed, initiated, and led qualitative user research through usertesting.com to gain a better understanding of user behaviors. I worked alongside the UX Research Intern and Head of UX Research to draft a set of questions that would measure user feedback through both behavior and verbal response. I then collected, synthesized and analyzed all of the raw data to ideate the new autoplay design.
Implementation Recommendation
During the last phase of this project, I presented my design recommendation based on the results of my competitive analysis and user testing. I worked with the developers to evaluate technical tradeoffs and scope out the complexity of the new design. Sadly, my internship ended before it was fully implemented, but thankfully all of my research paid off.
Outcomes
Usability testing report with detailed findings and design recommendations for how CNBC should handle video autoplay
Developers start to implement new design!
Challenges
Data collection, synthesis, and organization were all very time consuming
Time constraints kept me from doing multiple iterations of user testing