One of the most interesting but under-appreciated processes in building a web site is the amount of testing that goes on to figure out exactly what should go where. Many startups rely on A/B testing as they roll out new features, and the big guys — namely very popular sites like Google and Facebook — conduct extensive usability studies that can involve interviews, eye monitoring, and more. Today YouTube has revealed some of the action that goes on behind the scenes as it continues to tweak its all-important ‘Watch’ page — the site you see when you’re actually viewing a video on YouTube.
To help gauge the Watch page’s ideal layout, YouTube invited in a number of users and gave them magnets that represented different elements from YouTube and other popular video sites. The results were not surprising, but they present an interesting challenge to YouTube: the vast majority of users chose to streamline their page as much as possible, featuring a large video player, a search box, and a strip of related videos. But the site’s heavy uploaders, who are obviously key to YouTube’s success, tended to favor a more complex site with a greater emphasis on analytics, sharing, and social interaction.
YouTube’s task is to figure out a way to appeal to both sets of users. And to do that, it sounds like there’s going to be a new set of customization options coming our way, which would allow users to tweak their watch pages with the features they want. YouTube wouldn’t confirm that this feature is definitely coming (the company is still doing extensive testing so it may not be sure itself), but don’t be surprised if you get the option to build your perfect ‘Watch’ page six months down the line.
Last month YouTube gave us a peek at another one of its recent research revelations: its five star rating system doesn’t work, because people tend to either rate videos as 5’s or 1’s.
It simply shows you the lengths that these big companies have to undertake to provide a seamless experience to us, and we’re so good at critizing them no matter how much they improve our experience.
We simply don’t take the other side of the view to understand the work people do just to make it better for us, and considering YouTube is free it makes it even more valuable to understand why we don’t appreciate it now it is here for us to use.
Well said!
Jason,
When you say “Today YouTube has revealed some of the action that goes on behind the scenes as it continues to tweak its all-important ‘Watch’ page…” is this referring to more detailed research findings somewhere? Would love to read more if you have a link.
Now that Goog has their optimizer tool I can’t wait to see the final results they come up with!
I few months back I saw a test they did with 1024 variations of the YouTube homepage with the ultimate goal of increased sign ups. After testing it for a few days they had a clear winner that increased conversion by something absurd like 40%
Great post! I love this stuff.
I see YouTube’s challenge as you describe it, as the biggest chance for other startup’s. A video site that concentrates on the pure viewing experience rather than one that champions the heavy uploader.
It will be pretty hard to beat YouTupe in the hosting space, but i definitely see space for a startup when it comes to the pure viewing experience.
It is the shared viewing experience that matters. Which is to a certain extend the ultimate reward for someone who shares a video. Whoever can resemble the feeling of a theater, an evening with friends watching your favorite Seinfeld episode etc., is on to something.
replace chance with opportunity.
Sweet! I wouldn’t mind having a method of quickly assembling the best user interface for the way I like to use the site. Kudos if they roll it out.
Here’s an idea: simply provide different interfaces to different people.
Users who’ve never uploaded more than a couple of videos, who never bother to comment, and who spend less than 20 minutes a day on the site are obviously more likely to enjoy the streamlined, large video box option more. So give it to them. I’m pretty sure this is easy to implement.
Users who upload hundreds of videos a month, spend 1hr+ on YouTube each day, comment and leave video responses, well, give them the whole related videos and comments and what not in the interface.
Why is this news? Interface usability testing has been around for at least 20 years.
Not much here to be so gushy about.
You info is very nice..
YouTube is doing a fine job to improve user and publisher experience.
Why not let users customize their own layout? That could be a way to please everyone.
This is an interesting experiment. In light of what some people are suggesting, just allowing people to choose diminishes the value to both sets of users.
People will be discouraged to comment/participate if they have just the watch features. This will then make the uploaders screen less valuable to them.
With fewer uploaders, fewer videos to watch. You get the cycle.
You need to weigh both, and allowing people to customize it adds another layer of complexity to get the right experience. Also, you can’t default to one without turning off the others.
Yes. Your info is very nice.