UX Design Case Study
Twitch.tv Mobile
Twitch.tv is an online live streaming platform for users to stream themselves playing video games (primarily) or any other activities that are within platform guidelines. Users who aren’t there to stream themselves, can watch the millions of other streamers on the site, organized in categories by specific game or more vague categories for non-gaming. These include Just Chatting, Sports, Music, and many more. Our focus today is on a viewer's perspective on the mobile app, Twitch for iOS and Android, and my data driven solution.
DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated in any way to Twitch.tv or Amazon, or the creators of any Twitch.tv browser extensions. Any logos, interface examples, games/products, emoticons, imagery, or persons likenesses shown all belong to their respective owners and are merely shown for the purpose of education and discussion. All interface mockups based on the current Twitch mobile interface are done by myself without compensation as a personal project and not for profit.
Client /
Case Study
Role /
UI/UX Design
Agency /
N/A
Year /
2021
While using the Twitch Mobile App I’ve noted a vast difference in experience while viewing streams, especially the chatroom. Normally when watching Twitch, inside a stream's chat you will see custom emoticons designed by or for the streamer, available for viewers to use once subscribed ($5 monthly). This generates a sense of community amongst those who pay, but what about the free viewers or new visitors? How will they participate? On Desktop, there exists the ability to enhance your streaming experience using browser extensions, which is absent on other devices. These FREE extensions offer a vast public library of emoticons for anyone to use on their channel, all it requires is a connection to your Twitch.tv account on their main website, and for you to have the extension turned on while watching a stream.
One of the more well known and popular extensions called "Better TTV (BTTV)" also allows users to upload animated GIF emotes, allowing a much more vibrant and engaging chat experience with moving emotes. Most larger or more active Twitch channels/communities take advantage of this, by creating either custom emotes for use in their channel, or making use of existing public emotes for inside jokes and references. This has become such a widespread practice amongst successful and passionate streaming communities, phrases like "POGGERS"(an extension emote) became slang for something cool throughout the entire website. And attempting reading their chat without these extensions enabled makes them nearly incomprehensible.
When viewing a channel that has these enabled on mobile (or desktop with the extensions turned off) all the amazing custom emotes and GIFs I mentioned will appear as plain text. For a mobile user this can be very confusing and alienating since everyone might be reacting, responding to a reference, or prolonging an inside joke you have no hope of understanding. But how pervasive are Twitch extensions in a wider scope of the Twitch audience?
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So, I went looking for data. I surveyed many active Twitch viewers across multiple online communities through Discord (an online community chat app). Over a data gathering period of 3 weeks, I generated more than 150 anonymous data points. After organizing this data, it was brought to my attention that 8 out of 10 active twitch viewers watch livestreams from their computers with extensions enabled. And when asked about mobile viewing, said they only do when they have to (away from home or without access to Wi-Fi) and vastly prefer the browser based experience. So what can we do to keep Mobile Twitch from being a users absolute last resort?
The solution I propose is to create an extension library within the Twitch app itself. This will allow users to either download and make use of common and popular extensions on their mobile devices. This extension of the PC experience is not unheard of. The popular 2011 video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was able to be modded by its PC community in ways that enhanced the gameplay and aesthetics in ways impossible on a normal game console. To remedy this, the creators of Skyrim at Bethesda created a console mods library within a later edition of the game, allowing for Playstation and XBox players to experience some of the mods PC players had exclusive access to.
What I intend for the mobile version of Twitch, is for a similar update to occur. To have access to popular chat enhancing extensions would allow a mobile user to have close to if not the same chatting experience they would on a Computer. I came to this conclusion by reviewing the main differences and downsides surveyed Twitch users mentioned when watching from different devices. From this data, I’ve noted that every Twitch user who is aware of extensions, prefers the desktop viewing experience over mobile because the enhanced chat experience is invaluable. I’ve decided that to even the playing field, and potentially expand the market, we should give Mobile users this option. And of course, the installation of extensions is still completely optional.
Things to Consider about Implementing this Feature:
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Twitch.tv can control and moderate all extensions in their Library
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They could act heavily on their policies, veto Ad-Blockers, block Emotes
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3rd Party Extensions would need to be screened and moderated by Twitch
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Twitch has the opportunity to create their own extensions
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They might be the only option to mobile users, potentially not for free, further alienating them from 3rd Party Desktop Extension users
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A Mobile viewer can have an experience similar if not identical to Desktop
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The addition of custom potentially animated emotes in a live chat room with live video could be very resource intensive and use lots of data
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Streamers who go live from their phone can have the same chat experience
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Resource intensive chat might lower the quality of mobile live streams unless this feature is well-optimized
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Thank you for reading, I hope you found this insightful.