Design Netflix for Senior Citizens (Goal: Increase engagement time).

To clarify I am assuming this is Baby  Boomer (20%) of population in US and Silents. Assume this is now restricted to US.

Current situation: Netflix already has many genres including Mind and Body, Classical Movies, Spirituality, Sci-Fi, Health etc...

However the current situation, the User Interface to Netflix is not easy to identify various Genres and hence access to Seniors on what is available is difficult.

I will approach problem in two ways: 1. Increase type of content to attract Senior Citizens and 2. Help navigate the Netfli User Intf to increase engagement.

For now since the question is not about monetization I will not go into ROI calculations, etc.

 

Possible solutions:

1. Firstly User will have to identify if a Senior or somehow this has to be determined by Netfix based on ML algorithms.

2. A User Interface that will have very large buttons on display to show Generes that could be of interest to Seniors should be presented to these users.

3. Generes should be selected based on ML algorithms from usage of this age group.

4. New types of content should also be included. Many times Seniors want to revisit the Sports events - baseball, basketball, cricket, soccer matches when they were in the youth. This puts in the 1970-80 timeframe as it may not be possible to get good footage of prior decades. These should also be package as Classic Sports and a new genere should be created.

 

Summary: the User Interface should be improved so Seniors can get large button and quick access to relevant generes. New generes such as Classic Sports should be added. This will help increase the engagement time.

To design Netflix application for senior citizens 

First, I will scope out the project and establish general guiding metrics

Next, I will evaluate potential user groups and upon selecting a specific group, I will brainstorm user needs

Lastly, I will provide a solution to solve a specific user need

 

As it concerns netflix

Currently, as netflix is growing its user base internationally, my assumption is that it has expanded strongly in the young childdren, teens, millenials, and adults. However, perhaps is struggling to grow with the older senior citizens demographic. So are we trying to acquire more senior citizen users? Or are we trying to increase their engagement on the platform? 

 

Amazing, so lets say we are trying to grow the senior citizen userbase:

The metris that I would want to pay attention is:

1) The number of senior citizens who sign up for a netflix account or reactivate an older account

Additional metrics I would want to pay attention to:

2) - Changes in the time spent per senior citizen on Netflix

3) - Video viewing time spent on Netflix for senior citizens

4) - Time it takes to nagivate and start watching a Netflix video

5) Onboarding UI & setting up subtitles

User Journey -> Senior citizen gains awareness of the Netflix service. Perhaps it is a new movie they are hoping to watch or a recommendation from children or a friend -> Someone has to setup billing for a senior citizen and someone has to be able to help guide most senior citizens through the account setup process

 

User groups

Single, Independent Tech-savvy

Senior Citizen in Senior Homes

Lives with Family 

 

I want to start with a focus of Senior citizens in mind

 

Pain points for senior citizens, particularly in Senior Homes: 

1) Difficulty in Setting up billing on a site like Netflix 

2) Signing up for an account

3) Choosing what they want to watch

4) Not resonating with the current selections

5) Connecting netflix on one's television / netflix enabled tv or a roku like dongle

 

So that being said, with those problems in mind, these seem to be largely acquisition, and onboarding, and activation problems/barriers for senior citizens to start a Netflix subscription, so I will be keeping those in mind along with the metric of onboarding new senior citizens on Netflix or reactivating old accounts.

Features that I imagine that will make a larger impact on these proble:

Allowing them to have the ability to purchase ofr Netflix in-person and not just online via their senior housing providers, revenue sharing with senior housing

Specializing packages for their older individuals, whether it be their favorite older actors robert de niro or, al pacino or older sprots events

Some way to tag a senior citizen through some form of Machine Learning, locatioin, or ip address of the nursing homes

Have a more user-friendly UI for senior citizens such as easily setting up subtitles,  or navigating to what they want to watch

Searching for content prepackaged should be more seamless with the onboarding 

Having sales-persons visit nursing homes in p  bberson to get them to signup

Build out a special pricing / senior citizen discount to get more individuals senior citizens

Presetup boxes for netflix adoption

 

BUT for an MVP:

Specializing packages for their older individuals, whether it be their favorite older actors robert de niro or, al pacino or older sprots events

BUILD  a UI for individuals in the the nursing homes that packages content on older actors, older movies, as well trending new movies

Hire a salesperson and give him the equipment and work with nursing home with the opportunity for him to interact with him in 

 

 

I would also want to A/B test whether there would be value in offering some form of a partnership deal with a senior house living is possible where we could sell Netflix subscription packages in bulk for a discounted price to a retailer. it allows them to sell it as part of their entertainment experienes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I think about Netflix, what comes to my mind is a platform where users can login and watch movies/serials etc  based on their own taste, genre, language etc. Is that correct? (interviewer: Yes)

Are we classifying people above 60 yrs old as senior citizen? (interviewer: Yes)

Any particular platform to focus on? App or website (Interviewer: You decide)

Is there any particular reason why we want to design Netflix for senior citizen? As far as I can think, senior citizens have a relatively much more free time when compared to other segments, Hence if we can develop an engaging platform for senior citizens, we shall have regular users.

And as mentioned in the question, our primary goal is to increase user engagement for senior citizens.

When I think of the user segment, below are few characteristics I can think of: Senior citizens are more than 60 years old. They would have mostly retired from their work. They are not very tech savvy. Thy however, know about internet. They have a lot of free time. They spend their daily time looking at news, playing with kids, watching TV and going out or house needs, if any. Their physical capabilities keep reducing with increasing age i.e as one grows older, viewing capability, hearing capacity, remembrance keeps reducing. For these broad user segment, I can think of 2 user personas.

1)      Regular watchers – Andy is 65 years old. He likes crime series. Everyday he watches 1-2 episodes of the series and continue from the ended episode the next day.

2)      Occasional watches – Millie is 70 years old. He doesn’t watch movies often. He remembers of some old movie and he decides to watch the same in Netflix.

Amongst these, I would want to focus on regular watchers like Andy as they watch Netflix almost regularly.

A probable user journey for Andy shall look like follows:

Andy finishes his daily routine -> decides to continue his series -> opens Netflix -> clicks on the series he was watching last time -> plays the movie -> after certain episodes, he goes to sleep/ regular daily routine.

Possible problems/challenges are as follows:

1)      He might forget to watch the series for a day

2)      He might find it tough to find his series in Netflix

3)      He might not remember the ending of the last episode that he had watched previous day

4)      He might doze off in between while the Netflix continues to play

5)      Once a series finish, he might not know what series to watch next

6)      He might get bored with the content which is shown in Netflix

I would say 1), 4), 5) are the most important to solve to achieve goal of keeping Andy engaged more. Hope that is fine. (Interviewer: Yes go ahead)

A couple of solutions that I can think of

Solution	Problem solved	Impact	Dev/ Cost req
Send Notif to the phone number of the senior-citizen, to remind him about his daily routine This not only reminds him, but also can try to arouse his inner needs to watch the series with the notif content	1),	M	L
Integrate with phone alarm to remind him about his daily routine of episodes We can ask him permission to set daily alarms or a specific time	1),	H	M
Auto-stop after 1 episode The series shall auto-stop once an episode ends and ask Andy if he wants to continue watching.	4),	M	L
Automated algorithm that pauses after playing series for a certain time X and asks if he is still watching This algorithm shall take into effort avg watching time foreach person, historical sample of timestamp from where the person had requested for replay of previous episode,	4),	H	H
Recap of the previous day watched episodes Everyday, we can show a 2 min recap of the previous day episodes in case if he has not watched/does not remember certain scenes. Con: Recap creation for all episodes shall be resource-intensive effort	4),	H	H
Show list of series which he had watched 1 year ago This list shall bring back memories of old times and Andy might want to rewatch it	5),	H	L
Recommend a list of series which he can watch his entire family This is to tap into his needs to spend time with his family	5),	H	L

 

For MVP, I would want to focus on following: integrate with phone alarms to send reminders so as to remind him about daily episode, auto-stop after 1 episode and ask him to press yes if he wants to continue watching, show lists such as 1 year old movies, family movies to tap into his needs of spending time with family, etc,

Metrics I would want to focus are as follows:

1)      Avg session duration in a day

2)      Number of sessions in a day

3)      Number of people making use of the alarm integration

4)      Number of times the user clicks on “Yes” to continue watching after auto-stop (-ve metric)

5)      Number of clicks on recommended list

To summarize, I would want to focus on regular Netflix watchers and try to enhance their experience by building the following for MVP - alarm integration for reminder; recommended list based on historical watches series, family series; auto-stop video after 1 episode to ensure that he still wants to continue watching.

 

(Listing down use cases and user needs is the core of the product design question and hence I am diving right into it and sharing a short part of the answer and not the whole answer)

 

Users: 60+ age, living with their children or alone. Since the objective is not to increase sign-up conversion or conversion to paid users and only increase engagement time, I will focus specifically on this. 

 

(I am here using aspects of human-centred design (HCD) which talks about designing products based on a) User needs b) Capabilities c) Behaviors. It also teaches about creating products for human error and for when things go wrong)

 

 

Solutions based on the needs mentioned above:

 

Clarifying Questions

 

Firstly, I would like to ask the following clarification questions:

1)     Are all age groups under senior citizen covered? – Yes

2)     Are we building a mobile App or Web/TV App or both – Both

3)     Do we need to also consider senior citizens with certain Disability? Like impaired vision, Limbs, Memory loss, etc.? – Yes

4)     Are we focusing on a specific Geography or Region? – Not in particular. Consider All regions

5)     What do you mean by Increasing Engagement Time? Is it time spent on watching movies, videos, etc – Yes

 

I will then provide my understanding/assumption of the product and mission and get Interviewer’s buy-in

At Netflix, we want to entertain the world with best-in-class TV Series, Movies, Documentaries, etc.

Since Netflix already has profile categories like Children and Adults, it is easier to leverage the existing platform and build on top. We could enhance this with another category called “Senior Citizens”

 

Once the interviewer is fine with our assumptions, proceed ahead

 

User Groups

1)     Senior Citizens above 60 with minor disabilities/ ailments or without any & Retired.

2)     Senior Citizens who have major disabilities and are taken care of by Nurses or caretakers

3)     Senior Citizens who are enrolled in an organization/trust/NGO

 

I would focus on 1) those who are the majority of the population. Building a product for such a population should be relatively easier to start with (as they are retired, Have free time, Living with a family too) and considering the fact that they could be contributing to major usage. Further, we could start with these and delve into other user groups at a later stage.

 

User Story/ pain points

1.      A senior Citizen registers himself in Netflix with a subscription Plan

2.      A senior Citizen should be able to search and watch Local videos easily

3.      A senior Citizen should be able to organize their favorites just like how modern TVs allow them to set favorite TV channels

4.      A senior citizen should be able to continue watching from where they left. Further, they should be able to set reminders of their shows which can remind them on a daily, weekly basis on episodes left

5.      They are unable to watch for long times due to impaired vision etc.

6.      They are usually unaware when a new local content or tv series is released

7.      Unable to explore other interesting features apart from Movies like Virtual Reality, 3D world etc

8.      Translation to local languages.

 

Solutions and Prioritization

Below would be my Solutions and Priorities for the same based on Impact and Effort

Pain Point	Solution	Impact	Effort	Priority
1. a)	Since Senior Citizens are not that tech savvy or tech-oriented, we should think of a simpler payment and registration process which can be assisted by Voice Commands. A voice payment is a process of speaking to an artificial intelligence-powered device, such as a speaker/Voice Stick or a smartphone, and requesting it to make a payment. Netflix can come up with such voice-driven Devices	High	High	Low
1. b)	Creating a screen or UI which is simpler can be aided/guided by a family member	High	Low	High
2.	Based on Genre and Location, Netflix could also use AI/ML technologies to figure out Local shows and most watched shows by senior citizens in the neighborhood	High	Med	High
3. & 4.	Netflix can provide a bucket or a section Like Favorite Bucket where the Senior citizen can set 10 fav TV shows and set their schedule to watch those shows on a daily basis. Reminders can also be set which sends a notification on their Cell/Family member's cell to notify them about the status : è Continue from where you left è Watch the next episode Since Senior citizens could have memory issues due to age, notifications can help to keep a track of episodes and shows they watch on a periodic basis. The notification setting could also be turned off / periodicity could be set etc   Since Netflix already tracks users’ history building a notification engine should be easier. The notification engine should indirectly also drive user engagement since it reminds users periodically to watch their favorite shows	High	Low	Med
5.	Some of the safety measures can be built in like monitoring their watch times and reminding them if they overwatch and suggesting them to take a break and continuing after a set time. We can again leverage the notification engine that we discussed in point 4	Med	Low	Med
6	Again, periodic notifications can be sent whenever a new tv show, Local shows are released	Med	Low	Med
7.	Although a  bit complex to build during MVP, Netflix could also consider revolutionizing their experience by getting into VR/AR world for Senior citizens. virtual reality (VR) is changing the way older adults interact with technology and the world around them. Some of the benefits of virtual reality for seniors include helping to reduce loneliness, improving medical care, and providing adventure and entertainment. This would provide a great opportunity in a long run and can also drive user engagement considering the exciting and Interesting VR world to kill  the loneliness	High	High	Low
8	If subtitles are not available for the selected language, Netflix can come up with an inbuilt translation engine over Text/Voice which can help the senior citizen to understand the movie in his/her local language. This can help Netflix to penetrate regions/geographies with different languages apart from English.	Med	High	Medium

 

 

Summary &Conclusion

Netflix needs to support watching movies and videos for Senior citizens in a user-friendly way since Senior citizensare often not that tech savvy. In order to achieve these, we came up with many ideas revolving around Voice Machines or sticks, AI/ML to improve suggestions,  Notification systems to remind Aging citizens, Taking the experience to next level to kill loneliness using VR/AR, translations engine etc

To start with in an MVP phase, we could prioritize solutions 1b), 2), 3), 4) & 5) for Senior Citizens

 

And perhaps get into more complex implementations like Audio/Machine Driven Voice over Registration Payments, VR/AR into later stages which would benefit in a long run and could attract more users globally 

To conclude, Simplifying the user experience and bringing in modern technologies like VR/AR could help increase the user engagement for senior citizens.