Streaming with Subwire
Mike Terry, the founder of Subwire, slammed his coffee cup against the plastic table and exclaimed: "You know, we really have something new and innovative here, this...this is what actually helps support artists AND fans!" He went on, elaborating about his product until the coffee-jittered sermon came to an abrupt end. He then subtly added: "We're just a little behind schedule when it comes to our MAUs." From that moment on our team went to work.
Subwire is a live-streaming platform that allows artists to stream and monetize their performances. The platform also allows fans to stream the event from the audience while having the ability to make money off of it. In short, both artist/creator and audience/viewer are able to share their unique perspective of the event while capitalizing on the live-streamed performance.
Subwire was struggling to onboard users due to a lack of clarity, missing features, and a non-user-friendly interface.
Stakeholder Interview
Create connectivity, an easy to use interface, and expand event offering.
We kicked off the project by conducting a stakeholder interview. Our goal was to understand how Subwire currently operated and positioned itself in the live-streaming environment, and what their expectations for the team was.
Create Connectivity: Subwire wanted to have a flourishing community of artists and viewers who'd be able to instantly connect together, whether they were looking for a fanbase or searching for new artists to engage with.
Ease of Use: The current Subwire interface was flawed in many ways, but Mike couldn't locate the problems. He wanted the whole experience to feel easy and fun. He'd define our team's success by finding and addressing the specific problems that plagued the current application.
Event Expansion: Like many ambitious start-up founders, Mike, was already thinking 10 steps ahead. He wanted the Subwire interface to translate to multiple event types such as youth sports, and urged that we take that into account when considering our design choices. However, he'd later tell us to focus primarily on music.
User Interview
Difficulty marketing performances, low-ticket sales, a dislike of streaming musical events from home.
We approached the user interviews with a different mindset. Since Subwire, wanted to cater to artists and viewers, our team reached out to 12 participants: 6 musicians, and 6 music lovers to learn how they currently interacted with live-streaming platforms. We found two significant patterns:
Artist Insight: Artists lacked an easy way to market their performance while boosting ticket sales before the date of the show.
Viewer Insight: Most viewers, did not stream musical events unless it was their favorite band. They preferred to go to the live shows.
Task Analysis
At the end of each user interview, we asked our participants to complete a task analysis. The goal: create your own live stream and share the event with a friend (in this case it was our research team). What was clear was the amount of difficulty users faced when interacting with the current Subwire interface. We identified 3 major pain-points:
Pain Point 1
Unclear Language
The Home Screen was confusing. Both artists and viewers struggled to comprehend the meaning of the term "pop-up", and “creator”. For instance, if a viewer wanted to watch an event without directly participating by streaming the event, are they still a creator? This lack of clear distinction left both the artist and viewer confused and wondering if they should even use the application.
Pain Point 2
No Streamlined Event
There was a complete absence of a quick and streamlined method for sending invites for live performances. Users expected a fast and efficient way to share their live stream, but the current process was 7 steps long!
User selects “Create Your Own Pop-Up” or “live-stream”.
User enters their information.
User then clicks on email link “Step 1” to enter the live-stream.
User is directed to a page to create their username.
User is live-streaming but there is no way to share the stream without going back to the original email.
User goes back to original email, shown in step 3, then copies the email link that is displayed in step 2.
User shares link via text or social media channels.
Pain Point 3
No Digital Record
Both artists and viewers felt the lack of a "moment" or a digital artifact that could later be used for self-promotion or a keepsake. Currently, the only “moment” that was available was the ability to "capture" aka make a gif. Though users had no idea what the point of this feature was due to it’s ambiguous terminology.
Competitive Analysis
Subwire is missing streaming features that are standard on social media platforms.
Overall, the users we spoke with were confused and frustrated. The features and intuitive interface that they enjoyed using on other streaming platforms were absent on Subwire. More importantly, the current user experience contradicted the very message of what Mike and his team had set out to achieve: To build a product that would help cultivate a community by sharing special moments through a digital platform.
To better understand how to onboard users, and to adhere to industry standards, we conducted a competitive analysis. There were two key features that we realized we needed to implement into Subwire’s interface:
User Journey
We created a journey map to reflect the current experience that the user encountered on the Subwire interface. Putting together the journey map gave us a clearer insight into how to design a user-friendly Subwire.
So How Might We:
Distinguish roles and turn ambiguous language into simple terminology that will convert users?
Provide users with a smooth and effortless way to stream and share events?
Create an experience where each viewer could engage with Subwire in a personalized way?
Wireframes
The Schedule An Event Flow attempted to address a seamless way to create an event as well as distinguish user roles.
The Go Live Flow would give access to immediately stream events.
Hi-Fidelity Mock Up
Defined Roles
Having a "How it works" section allowed users to immediately comprehend what Subwire was and it's advantages for both creators and viewers. This would alleviate a lot of the frustration that users voiced in pain point 1.
Clear Terminology
We decided to use the term 'Go Live' instead of 'Create A Pop-Up' to provide a clear and consistent call to action. Now, both artists and viewers could host or join a live stream.
Artist Customization
Our user research revealed that artists sought a way to schedule events and reach fans with a 'pre-save' feature for upcoming shows. This level of customization would enable artists to plan events ahead of time, potentially boosting pre-show ticket sales, while also giving fans the opportunity to connect with their favorite bands before the performance.
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A Digital Record
Both artists and viewers now had the ability to record their stream so they'd be able to have an artifact for personal or publicity purposes after the event ended.
Usability Study
Incoherent hierarchy, insufficient user prioritization, and confusing language.
I moderated a usability study where I asked 6 participants (4 artists, and 2 viewers) to: Create a live stream and share it with a friend. To our surprise, 100% of the users failed to successfully complete the task. What was going on?!?!
The “go-live” CTA was intended to function as a way to immediately stream a live event. However, both groups of streamers were confused by the ambiguous terminology and functionality. Was this CTA there to stream an event or to watch an event?
This feature was intended for content creators to schedule an event for a later date, but that’s not how the users viewed it. They perceived it as another way to stream an event immediately. Essentially, it was being confused with our “go live” CTA.
After going over the research, we synthesized the "Go Live & Schedule An Event" flows into a single streamlined process called "Launch A Stream". Now, the artist and viewer would have the choice to create a live event in that moment or to schedule it for later.
When we tested our new design solution with the same participants, they successfully completed our ask with a new completion rate of 100%.
Impact
Perhaps the greatest impact our team had on Subwire was convincing Mike of the importance of conducting user research. At first, Mike was apprehensive. He was approaching his product based on his own assumptions and biases, which was one of the biggest reasons why Subwire failed to gain adoption: preconceived notions rooted in assumptions.
After presenting Mike with our results, with real user insights, he sharply pivoted from his initial approach and began to adopt a user-focused mindset. Eventually, Subwire would go on to implement many of the features that our team discovered such as scheduling an event. Mike, also extended the contract for the team.
Takeaway
The most important takeaway of this project was how terminology impacted the way an interface is perceived and used. There are many ways to say "stream an event" but what's the most effective and why? Even seemingly small language choices have a substantial impact on design flows. In the case of our project, the importance of testing terminology was key to creating an intuitive interface. Letters and words! What wonderful symbols they are.