For every product and/or service out there its success and longevity largely depends on the experience users will have when they use it. With the continuous growth of different OTT services being offered to viewers on a daily basis user experience (UX) is going to have more and more significant impact on whether the app makes it or breaks it. This is a topic for several articles but today we will discuss it in general and then get into more detailed analysis in the future posts.

As often mentioned in previous articles, content is the king and no matter how great your OTT app looks and how well and intuitive it works without the content you will lose your viewers. However, if you have that aspect covered then from the user’s perspective, it becomes the game of feelings and experiences of navigating through the app, or better said, being navigated through the app. It is all about creating visually outstanding application with great user functionality (If you want to know more about what that means in real life feel free to get in touch with us. We at AVIION are all about combining functionality with beautiful design. We absolutely love it!).

OTT UX designers have a rather complex task in creating an app that will provide a good user experience. They have to consider both the technological aspects as well as creating a seamless cross-platform (from web, Android and iOS mobile apps, Tizen and webOS smart TV apps to Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV and others) way for users to discover, consume, and interact with content. It takes a lot of know-how to create an engaging OTT app with intuitive interface and seamless navigation. Creating a great OTT UX experience is no small feat but when done right will bring you bigger viewer’s engagement and keep the churn on the lower side.

While having great ideas and design solutions you are implementing is very important do bear in mind that it is the biggest players in the market (Netflix and YouTube) who influence a lot of viewer’s habits therefore already creating a certain level of expectations from the viewers. Their data pool and the testing ground for the next feature and better UX experience is immense. So it is always a good idea to be aware of what is trending and then use your own know-how and experience whether it is a smart element or feature to implement into your own design. It is not the smartest idea to simply copy whatever they are doing as they are continuously making changes and adapting and getting rid of features that they consider to be ineffective for them.

Based on the viewer’s habits the app should be able to build a personalized experience through offered content. For that reason, it is always a better option to go for a registered-user format rather than unregistered, anonymous format. With registered user you get a plethora of information each time they use the app (what they are watching, searching, when, for how long, ratings they give, and many other personal preferences) which can be used for creating a tailor-made viewing experience for each viewer. Add to this a properly timed push notification about the content of their interest and you are sure you are doing proper viewer-retention activities. Tailor-made viewing experience means you are recommending the right content to the specific user based on their personal viewing preferences as well as on the data on the similar types of viewers. Over 70% of all views on YouTube and Netflix come from content recommendations.

Great UX means great ease of content discovery for the viewer. Keep it clean and simple, the viewers will appreciate it and use your OTT app more giving you even more information to create better and more effective business models. The more the viewers use your app you are creating better brand ambassadors for sure. Starting your OTT brand is easier with the right partner, and AVIION just might be what you have been looking for.