Summer of 2022, I took a break from working as an optometric technician. I began creating content for the game Animal Crossing: New Horizons and started streaming as well. I chose TikTok as my main platform just because of the great engagement the platform offers and the huge opportunity to grow fast as a creator. Most of my friends that I made on the platform are Twitch streamers, hence I started to watch Twitch a lot more to support my friends, and happened to find a lot of my current favorite streamers there.

Twitch is a popular live streaming platform primarily focused on gaming, but it has expanded to include various other content categories such as music, art, and creative streams. Most of my friends who are small streamers expressed a great concern of lack of discoverability on Twitch. They mainly rely on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Youtube to post their promo contents and short clips to redirect viewers to their Twitch channel.

Why is it so difficult to grow as a streamer on Twitch?

Just like the job market nowadays, it is hard for streamers to stand out and catch viewers attention. When a user clicks on a game category of choice, the top and famous streamers are always shown on top even when the filter is on “Recommended For You”.

The only way for Twitch streamers to promote themselves on Twitch are their VODs (videos-on-demand) and Clips.

After a little research, I found out that there is a decline in number of streamers on Twitch since 2021, and more streamers are leaving Twitch for other platforms like Youtube and TikTok.

As of 2023:

Quantitative Data

I was curious to how my followers were able to discover my account and conducted a small survey on TikTok. The results surprised me.

• 50.9% of my followers found me through my live streams that popped up on their For You Page
• 40.7% of my followers found me through my viral videos that popped up on their For You Page
• 8.3% of my followers found me through my contents on other platforms such as Instagram, Youtube, and Pinterest

I dived a little deeper into other streaming platforms that are on the rise and see what they have to offer. While the platforms share a lot of similar features, there are some that stand out more to streamers and get chosen more often.

User Research

To help tackle this problem furthermore, I interviewed a total of 5 people, 3 of whom are my friends who are currently streamers on Twitch.

While my main focus is to learn the struggles that small streamers like my friends are facing with their discoverability, having 2 participants who are just viewers can help me gain more insights into viewers' stream browsing behavior and preferences on streaming platforms.

Which formed some key insights:

All streamers struggle with gaining visibility on Twitch and standing out among other streamers.

All streamers rely on other platforms like Youtube or TikTok to promote their brand.

2/3 streamers browse streams to support new and smaller streamers, mostly in their game category.

All viewers browse more when there's a new game released and they want to check it out.

But there seems to be a problem that both streamers and viewers share:

To focus more on the streamer side of things, I created a persona as a useful way to keep in mind the needs and the challenges of small streamers as we move forward

Figuring out how to build the solution

To not distract myself from different problems and focus on only the streamers’ problems, I set out a problem statement using my user persona’s story:

“Antony is a Twitch streamer that needs help attract new viewers to his channel because there is not a way for small streamers to be discovered on Twitch. “

How can I create a solution that could increase visibility and discoverability for small streamers, help them stand out and attract a larger audience while improving the viewer experience on Twitch?

I brainstormed a couple of unique propositions that would address my user persona’s needs and frustrations the best, despite some of these solutions might have already existed:

From these three options, option #1 allowed me to be the most creative. However, it is crucial for me to remember to follow the brand guidelines, and business needs should be considered equally as well as user needs.

I explored option #1 further and sketched some rough layout and solutions addressing persona needs in a slightly different way (vertically and horizontally). By doing so, I can visualize my ideas and help my design decisions.

• There will be a new navigation bar option
  

• It is important to include the streamer’s basic information such as their name, category title, and viewer count.
  

• Chat preview is important as it can encourage viewers to join the stream if the community seems fun and welcoming
  

• Viewers have the ability to filter and cater their feed by choosing  “Reporting” or “Not For Me” option
  

Approach #2 should be similar to #1, but it can be scrolled horizontally. After looking at both approaches, I decided to stick with #1 just because it is easier to scroll vertically and it is a reflex - it just makes more sense to scroll vertically than horizontally.

I then took my sketches into Figma and refined them while also re-evaluating some of my initial ideas. I made sure to follow Twitch’s brand guidelines and style for consistency.

while hovering:

How will users behave?

The prototype was pretty much ready to be put in the hands of potential users . I believe that testing early and often is vital for any products. I recruited 3 moderated users to observe how easy or difficult it is to navigate around the new feature.

Participants were presented a straightforward task of finding Discover on the navigation menu, scroll through the stream feed, and join a specific stream.

After the test, I synthesized key points and observations using an affinity diagram, which revealed a few feedbacks:

All users appreciated the continuous feed format for presenting a variety of streams, indicating that it seems interesting and will find themselves using it if it is a real feature.

All users were able to successfully located the navigation bar option and navigated through the feed with ease.

1 user expressed an issue with cluttered layouts, which was deemed distracting and  hindered their ability to quickly identify streams of interest.

I iterated on the design once more while applying users' feedback to ensuring a more seamless and enjoyable experience. Changes included simplifying streamers' information to make it less distracting for users to look at, while keeping Twitch's UI style and branding.

Changes I have made

Taking our users' feedback into consideration, I have made some small changes that will ensure a more seamless experience and improve users' ability to quickly identify streams of interest

Before:

After:

Making it more official

Just like any other time when Twitch announces a new feature, they always have a pop-up that introduces users to the new feature with informational content to help users more familiar with it. After carefully taking a look at Twitch's tone of voice and style, I put together a nice informational pop-up that can help introduce the new feature to users.

The Final Prototype

This is the final prototype for Twitch Discover. It is simple and straightforward,  with a clean interface and easy navigation. Through iterative design and user-centered iteration, I hope that the prototype has embodied Twitch's commitment to enhancing the streaming experience for its community, while giving small streamers a great boost to their growth and community on the platform.

Key Takeaways

During my design process, Twitch actually came out with a new UI for their browse section and it carries the same idea of letting users scrolling through stream. It was available for only certain users for testing. At first, it intimidated me quite a bit to start with this project and continue with this idea. But if anything, this should work in my favor because it means that me and Twitch were both heading in the same direction!