Building a Personalized OTT Experience for Bharat: Driving Engagement and Retention through Strategic Design Initiatives
01
OVERVIEW & BUSINESS PROBLEM
Stage is a regional SVOD OTT platform with 4M+ subscribers. A core challenge was 58% of trial users declined autopay, citing a lack of relevant content despite a large library. This project aimed to solve this by improving content personalization and engagement.
Stage's Pricing
02
MY ROLE & TEAM
As a Product Designer, I drove this initiative, focusing on competitive audit, research, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing, and dev handoff. I collaborated with a Senior Product Designer, Product Manager, and 6 Developers.
03
RESEARCH & INSIGHTS
We conducted extensive secondary research, including a competitive audit of 6+ leading SVOD platforms to analyze content surfacing strategies. We also researched recommendation engine models (Collaborative, Content, Hybrid Filtering) to inform our personalization strategy.
04
STRATEGIC NEED FOR EXPLICIT FEEDBACK
Our existing recommendations lacked objective cues. Explicit feedback (like/dislike) was identified as the 'ultimate source of truth' for user interest, serving as the backbone for a robust recommendation engine, and directly improving retention and conversion.
05
STAKEHOLDER COLLABORATION & PROPOSALS
We proposed two feedback collection methods: simple voluntary interactions for overall satisfaction, and objective Likert scales for ML algorithms. We aligned with stakeholders to prioritize a user-friendly, industry-standard interaction model for higher adoption.
06
USER FLOWS & TOUCHPOINTS
User flows were designed to integrate feedback collection seamlessly into key user journeys, such as post-content viewing and on content detail screens, based on competitive analysis.User Touchpoints for Feedback Collection
07
ICON RESEARCH & USABILITY TESTING
A rigorous on-ground research (two rounds) was conducted to identify culturally appropriate and intuitive icons for our regional audience. This directly impacted usability and data quality.Initial Icon IdeationsIcons Considered During Research for Cultural Relevance
08
DESIGN DETAILS: FINAL UI (Feedback Mechanism)
The final UI was designed for seamless integration and ease of use across Mobile, Web, and TV. Strategic placement on content detail screens, within the video player, and on home screens ensures intuitive user interaction.
Mobile UITV UIWeb UI
09
OUTCOME & IMPACT
This feedback mechanism is a foundational element for Stage's growth. By collecting direct user preferences, we've established a crucial data source for our recommendation engine, leading to:
Better Recommendations:More precise and personalized content discovery.
Enhanced Engagement: Increased time on platform due to relevant content.
