YouTube
Role
Contract Product Designer
Timeline
Feb - May 2023
Winter 2025 (Individual Rework)
Team
4 Designers
1 Project Lead
1 Stakeholder
Disciplines
Mobile Design
Interactive Design
User Research
Contextual Inquiries
YouTube Enters the Competition of Being a Short-Form Content Platform
Background
In September 2020, Youtube launched a new aspect of viewing content, YouTube Shorts. With the amount of choices now available, receiving relevant and quality content can be hard. This can lead to users preferring other short-form content platforms over YouTube Shorts. We aimed to create solutions that pushed for personalization and trust.
our involvement
Throughout the Spring 2023 semester, my team at Berkeley Innovation partnered with an Interaction Designer at YouTube to design high-fidelity UX solutions. Together, we conceptualized a curated browsing experience for YouTube Shorts, with features projected to enhance user enjoyment to align with business objectives.
YouTube Shorts Dashboard
YouTube originally did not have a unique section to scroll through Shorts. Users were frustrated about the lack of integration and wanted Shorts to be more accessible.
We created a separate tab, providing an intermediary selection page from the navigation bar to make Shorts distinct from long-form content. This allows you to have all your short-form content needs in one place, eliminating the lack of integration.
Shorts Pre-Browsing Form
Users did not feel that their interests were being seen.
We created a screen that allows you to select topics pulled from your watch history and exploratory topics related to expressed interests during the onboarding process. Cater your feed to your exact taste.
Browsing Blend
YouTube lacks connectivity, a trait that serves as a commodity amongst other short-form content platforms.
We created a way for users to interact with their friends by utilizing the creation of a blend. It is a feature where Shorts will generate a curated playlist with you and a friend's algorithm, creating a playlist based on similar interests.
who are we designing for?
understanding our users
Throughout this project, we were tasked with focusing on the needs and motivations of two key user types: the Hunter and the Gatherer. The Hunter enters the browsing experience with a clear idea of the specific content they are seeking, while the Gatherer has broader topics of interest and is open to exploring a wider range of content. To further understand their unique motivations and overlapping needs, we created a Venn diagram that highlights the challenges and preferences of each group while uncovering areas of alignment. This visual helped us identify key design opportunities to address both user types effectively.
By understanding the unique motivations of Hunters and Gatherers, as well as their shared desire for a purposeful and intuitive browsing experience, we aimed to address their needs by bridging these gaps and uncovering why they stray away from YouTube Shorts.
Thus we asked,
How Might We...
improve the YouTube Shorts searching and browsing experience so “gatherers” & “hunters” can find content that are relevant to their interests?
Understanding why people gravitate towards other short-form content platforms
competitive analysis
According to a Statistica finding, the preferences of short-form content revealed:
39% of people prefer TikTok
23% of people prefer YouTube Shorts
22% of people prefer Instagram Reels
14% of people prefer Facebook Reels
To better understand these numbers, we conducted a feature analysis to identify the commonalities and unique features each platform offered. This allowed us to gain insights into how their algorithms function and why users are drawn to them. Using these findings, we uncovered the following:
We discovered that TikTok excelled in having an internal UI specifically designed for short-form content, a feature absent from all other platforms. Many apps also struggled to have a balance between offering new content and providing content aligned with users' past interests. Significantly, YouTube Shorts was the only platform lacking an in-app sharing feature.
Surveying 93 Respondents & Interviewing 8 People To Get A Sense For How They Value and use Short-Form Content Platforms
user surveys
After analyzing the differences among popular short-form content platforms, we created a survey to assess how users value specific features that define these platforms along with their main motivations when browsing. In our survey, we asked 90+ participants to rank their reasons for engaging with short-form content.
What motivates you to use short-form content platforms?
77.4%
Relaxation
54%
Connection
52%
Learn a New Skill
user interviews & contextual inquiry
Building on our understanding of these factors, we conducted 8 interviews to gain deeper insights into user behavior and preferences. Our participants included eight individuals: four familiar with YouTube Shorts and another platform, and four who exclusively used competing platforms for short-form content. Through these interviews, we sought to:
Identify stopping points in the current browsing experience
Uncover what motivates users to prefer competitor platforms
Explore the interface features users engage with to achieve their browsing and search goals
Understand how users balance browsing content relevant to their interests with discovering new topics
After completing our user research, we affinity mapped our findings to organize the repeating themes and found four common characteristics that our users valued:
A Need For Balance Between YouTube & Its Users Needs
journey mapping
Both Hunters and Gatherers are disheartened by a Shorts experience that falls short of their expectations. Hunters struggle with the inability to directly see content aligned with their specific goals, while Gatherers, despite being more open to exploration, face challenges in adjusting their preferences to the algorithm once they find content they like. These points create significant barriers to sustaining engagement and user satisfaction.
key insights: so, what’s the issue?
Within the browsing experience, we found the main stopping points to be the disjoint between YouTube and YouTube Shorts, lack of trust in the content relevancy, and a need for in-app connection.
Disjoint between Youtube and YouTube Shorts
YouTube was not originally designed as a short-form content platform. Unlike competing platforms that seamlessly blend various content types, YouTube’s transition to short-form content lacks fluidity. As a result, users often struggle to embrace Shorts, preferring to use YouTube primarily for long-form content.
The Shorts Tab in the Navigation Bar
There’s currently three different access points to navigate to Shorts. Though there’s a way to filter shorts when searching, there is no separate page for the user to exclusively search for short-form content or to find shorts within their specific interests. The tab itself leads to endless scrolling and searching for content within this tab leads to suggestions with both short-form and long-form content.
Content Relevancy
Users primarily browse short-form content for personal enjoyment and entertainment, but the content often feels random and irrelevant to their interests. There is little to no control in personalizing the algorithm to match their preferences.
Community & Connection
YouTube Shorts lacks an intuitive way to share content, leaving users less motivated to return. This lack of interactivity stands in contrast to competing platforms that foster engagement by encouraging users to share and connect with others.
How Do We Turn these Pain Points Into Opportunities?
core principles
To guide ideation, we focused on three core principles that users value most, aligning them with our design goals. These principles formed the foundation of our designs, ensuring they addressed key user motivations and expectations.
Ease
Users seek a seamless and intuitive browsing experience that feels natural and familiar to navigate effortlessly.
Trust
Users need to feel in control of what they see with confidence that the algorithm prioritizes their interests and preferences.
Interconnection
Users value connections, whether through in-app sharing features or discovering content that reflects their friends' interests.
ideation
Our team used the Crazy 8’s method, where each member brainstormed 8 ideas within 8 minutes, focusing on addressing these principles. Afterward, we ranked our ideas using a 2x2 impact and feasibility matrix, allowing us to prioritize solutions that would deliver the greatest user and business value while being realistic to implement.
Our ideas had some overlap, but we concluded with three features we wanted to move forward with that provided intervention for the key stopping points of the experience:
YouTube Shorts Dashboard
A dedicated space for short-form content, offering a seamless and focused browsing experience tailored exclusively to Shorts.
Pre-Browsing Form
Allows users to take action during onboarding to customize their browsing experience based on their interests.
Browsing Blend
Fosters content discovery and connections by creating collaborative playlists tailored to users' combined algorithms.
how would these features interact?
User flow
To visualize how these features work together, I designed a user flow that demonstrates the interaction between the Pre-Browsing Form, Browsing Blend, and the YouTube Dashboard.
YouTube Shorts Dashboard
Users were frustrated with the lack of integration between Shorts and long-form videos.
Browse through your short-form content all on one screen with videos pulled from your own selected interests and a curated 'For You' section. This eliminates the lack of integration and frustration when it comes to browsing Shorts, allowing the user to have a place solely for their short-form content needs.
Shorts Pre-Browsing Form
Users want their interests and needs to impact their algorithm.
We created a screen that allows users to select topics pulled from their watch history and exploratory topics related to expressed interests during the onboarding process to generate a more personalized experience.
Browsing Blend
Users wanted YouTube Shorts to be more interactive with sharing.
We created a way for users to share using a blend. It combines videos of interests between two parties into a personalized playlist consisting of videos from both users’ algorithm, allowing users to discover new content and creators that their friends are interested in.
Metrics to Measure
In order to measure the effectiveness of our recommendations, YouTube should track:
Click-Through Rate
More users engaging with Shorts via the Dashboard signals streamlined success.
Session Duration
Extended time on Shorts shows users value the personalized browsing experience.
Interaction Rate
Increased usage proves that we enhanced customization and user satisfaction.
Reflection
This project was a deep dive into designing for personalization, trust, and community within the competitive landscape of short-form content platforms. One of the biggest challenges was addressing the disjointed integration of YouTube Shorts within the larger platform. This gap pushed us to think critically about creating a seamless user experience while also balancing features that cater to both user preferences and business goals.
Through user research, we identified clear pain points, such as the lack of trust in algorithmic recommendations and limited interactivity for sharing content. By introducing features like the Shorts Dashboard, Pre-Browsing Onboarding Form, and Browsing Blend, we sought to bridge these gaps and align the experience with user motivations.
A special thank you to Leon for his guidance and trust throughout this project! His mentorship gave me the confidence to tackle ambiguity, think critically, and grow as a designer. This project will always be a special milestone in my design journey.