Oja
Oja is a social media app for streamers to network, collaborate, and share knowledge. Its user-friendly interface and interest/skill-based filtering make finding the right streaming partner easy. With messaging and live-sharing features, you can communicate and collaborate in real-time while sharing content creation tips. Oja makes networking and collaborating smooth and easy.
My Role
Solo UX/UI Designer
UX Research
Information Architecture
UI Design
Usability
Deliverables
User flows
Wireframes
Low-fidelity prototype
Research results
High-fidelity prototype
Tools
Figma
Google Forms
Zoom
Maze
Timeline
3 weeks
Overview
Problem Statement
Networking and finding a supportive community as a streamer can be very difficult, especially on current social media platforms.
Users and Audience
The users are live streamers on any platform. The parameters are having a channel of some kind, with content creation present on it.
Solution
Create an app that serves as a hub for streamers to discuss and network among each other with ease and comfort.
Process
As I am familiar with it and it has worked very well for me in the past, I made use of the double diamond design process, which consists of four parts:
Discover in which I established and tested hypotheses, uncovered user needs, collected and analyzed data, and established problem statements.
Define in which I decided what the problem will solve.
Develop in which I tested solutions, and established branding and style.
Deliver in which I completed the final product.
Goals
These were the main goals of the application:
To create an app that serves as a community for streamers to discuss and connect.
To foster collaborations and connection within a well regulated community.
To create opportunities for new streamers to learn and for experienced streamers to share with others.
Discover
I developed this project to address the needs of live streamers who use separate sites like Twitter and TikTok, which aren't designed to cater to their specific needs. While Discord servers are exclusively for streamers, they lack social media sharing features. This app aims to provide a seamless communication experience for streamers, filling the gaps left by other platforms.
Competitive Analysis
In order to better understand how transit apps work in the market currently, I downloaded the following apps to analyze: Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram.
Strengths
Limited media style (short videos).
Primary media player is well-focused.
Wide reach with many users.
Easy to upload content.
Weakness
No longer content posts.
Limits complex discussions and conversations.
Only one video is viewable at a time
Opportunities
A wider array of media options.
A broader explore page.
A community centered around streamers.
Threats
Immense reach and lock down on short video content.
Strengths
Variety of media forms.
Large user base.
Effective profile page for networking.
Easily accessible messaging system.
Weakness
No dedicated interest-oriented communities.
Widely considered to have a toxic website culture.
Accessing all site features requires a subscription to Twitter blue.
Character limit.
Opportunities
More streamer oriented community.
No subscription.
Threats
Vast user-base.
All forms of media are supported.
Strengths
Strong image/video-oriented community.
Text posts can be posted as images.
Stories area good way to keep up with people.
Expansive and effective explore page.
Good messaging system.
Weakness
No actual text posts.
Constantly changing algorithm.
Heavy reliance on hashtags.
Opportunities
Text posts.
Improved recommendations for interests.
More clearly defined topic sections.
Threats
Instagram live.
Strong community for image/video-oriented groups.
Strengths
Specific subreddits for communities.
All formats of media are supported.
Supports complex conversations as well as shorter video media.
Feed is easy to curate.
Weakness
More cluttered interface.
Messaging is less welcoming.
Promoted content look like posts.
Opportunities
Less text oriented overall.
Improved messaging system.
Threats
Great place to find answers/ share knowledge.
Easy create a feed reflecting your interests (in this case streaming).
Quantitative Research
In order to get some logistical data regarding demographics and some general sentiments of the user base, I created a Google survey. The survey was open to any streamer who had completed at least one stream in the past and are or were interested in content creation. The survey asked questions regarding specific pain points and general gauged a general consensus regarding the issues that the product aimed to tackle.
Key Takeaways:
Streamers are looking for a community building experience. Many streamers want to build and connect within a community, however are having a tough time regulating them on contemporary forms of social media.
Approaching other streamers is difficult. Many streamers want to connect to other streamers, but find themselves held back by apprehension and anxiety.
Most streamers already collaborate with others. The majority of streamers that responded noted that they already collaborate with some others. However they expressed interest in collaborating with more.
Most streamers would appreciate a more streamlined way to connect with other streamers. Despite having avenues to find other streamers, many current forms of social media do not make it a clean process.
Key Demographics:
18-24 year olds were 50% of the respondents, and as such. make up the majority of the user base, followed by 25-35 year olds at 30%.
85% of the of the users rated themselves "proficient" with technology.
76% of the respondents lived with a roommate, followed by the 13% of users that lived alone as a distant second.
U.S. and Canada made up the majority of respondents at 46% and 32% respectively, followed by Australia at 12%.
Qualitative Research
I used Discord to conduct interviews. The participants were largely recruited from my personal circle, however I was able to get some further interviews from individuals who responded to my quantitative survey. The questions were more elaborate and delved deeper into the reasoning behind some of the responses in the survey. In addition, there were questions that were more open ended which were designed to draw out pain points and concerns that I had not considered yet.
The four main things I asked about were:
Their interest in a space exclusive for streamers.
Their ability to network using contemporary social media applications.
The shortcomings of these applications.
What networking as a streamer entails and how they go about doing it, if they do at all.
Insights
There is an interest in a streamer exclusive space. Streamers often have to curate their posts for the eyes of their audience. As an interviewee cited, they belong to a discord group for just streamers. This is due to the fact that they would like to discuss concerns and ideas between streamers that they don't want to share with the general viewer.
Current social media applications all have pieces of a whole. The same interviewee mentioned above talked about how they have to interact with fellow streamers in three different places: Discord, Twitter, and Reddit. Discord is useful for having private/curated streamer boards but does not have the explorational qualities of other social media, Twitter is useful for mass outreach and seeing a variety of different content on your feed, but is not curated and is not specifically geared to foster discussions, and reddit is useful for finding answers on technical questions, but lacks the messaging and social media community quality.
Observation comes first. When it comes to reaching out to other streamers, a majority of the interviewees mentioned that they do not approach until they have seen the content and profile of the streamer. In addition, even after they have seen it, many said that they waited a bit to get an idea of the interests and "vibe" of the streamer they were curious about.
Reaching out is the scariest part. A lot of the participants mentioned that reaching out was the scariest part, which largely corresponds to the survey evidence. The apprehension of not knowing a particular person is the biggest barrier to networking according to the interviewees.
Conclusion:
The findings of the survey seemed to reflect the individual beliefs held by the streamers I interviewed. Knowing that the findings supported my hypothesis, I was able to proceed without amending my problem statement and proposed solution.
Personas
Journey Map
Define
User Stories
Using the responses I got during the discovery phase of the project, I crafted the following user stories to represent what I saw as pressing concerns of those in the community.
As a streamer, I want a place to meet other streamers for collaboration, to help network and grow my channel.
As a new streamer, I want to learn from those that are more experienced than I am, so that I can make a good decisions at the beginning of my streaming career.
As a professional streamer, I want to be able to talk to others who understand the logistics of streaming, in order to discuss using technical terms that may not be widely known.
As a twitch streamer, I want the ability discuss site specific issues, so that I can solve any problems I have with it faster.
User Flow
These were the initial user flows I drew up to build a wireframe of my project around. The amount of features increased once I developed my wireframe, but these flows served as the basis for my design.
Site Map
This site map was the culmination of all the features I thought to add as I was building off of my user flows. The skeleton it provided was the perfect base for me to flesh out with features. As i took reference from other social media sites the amount of features I could include to improve the experience grew exponentially.
Sketches
These are the initial sketches I came up with to map out the idea. The visual design aspect was introduced to the project here. I used the crazy 8 method and the very rough wireframe method to map out the idea, as those are the ones I found to be most effective in my past projects.
Wireframe
This is the initial prototype I made using Figma. By following the blueprint laid out by the user flow and site map, I added the features required to accomplish the objectives laid out in the user stories.
Summary
Designing a community. Designing this app gave me insight on designing for not only utility, but to understand the core emotional desires of the users. In order to facilitate connection between streamers, I had to truly understand streamer culture, their individual priorities, and everything in between. This process helped me grow in this unique field of design, in which the experience is guided so heavily by not only what the users need, but also their feelings regarding the product.
Becoming process oriented. This project drove me to refine my work process and design steps, as I had to be careful with my progress.
Using new tools. I used Maze for the first time for this project, and found it to be immensely helpful when remote resting my products. The ability to set predicted paths and assign tasks to users was immensely helpful for the usability testing portion of this project.
Using old tools effectively. During my time working on this project, Figma was aquired by Adobe. Learning how to use the tools I already use from Adobe, now with much better cohesion with Figma, was an unexpected treat. It was an interesting experience, and one that boosted my ability to work with both sets of software greatly.
