Ideal app features

While attraction and retention of users primarily depends on the app content, the ability for the user to easily
interact with your app creates a delightful association with
the app and keeps the user coming back. Easy interactions go beyond
the design of the UI and into features and capabilities. Below is a list
of capabilities that users expect and features that will enhance the
value of your app.

Finding content

• Browse

  • There are many different ways to organize and present your
    content. The key is to understand your audience and how they
    think about your content and how they would want to access it.
  • Your app can offer a mix of organizational schemes. For
    example, one or more of the time sensitive and personal schemes,
    plus one consistent and predictable scheme as a fallback:
    • Time based (Updated frequently):
      • Showcase or featured (E.g., Curated topics or content,
        but it must be updated frequently)
      • Time oriented (E.g., New releases, latest episodes, new
        this week, etc.)
      • Popular or trending (E.g., Algorithm based content)
    • Personal (Updated based on usage):
      • Recommended
      • Recently watched
      • Watchlist
    • Consistent and predictable (Updated based on library
      changes):
      • Logical or categorical (E.g., Genres)
      • Alphabetical (However, categorical browsing may be
        better/faster for large libraries)

• Search

  • If your content library
    exceeds 200 items, then your app should offer users the ability to search for
    content.
  • Note, on-screen keyboards are tedious to use and so to help make
    it easier, we recommend:
    • QWERTY key layout which is great for physical keyboards when
      touch-typing is possible. For on-screen keyboards, an
      alphabetic arrangement is preferred.
    • Provide search results for every character typed in. So, to
      minimize typing, users can type until the result they're
      looking for appears. This implies that your app must
      return results very quickly.
  • Be forgiving with the input search terms:
    • Don't force users to key in "The" (E.g., "Walking Dead" should work as well as "The Walking Dead")
    • Capitalization is not necessary
    • Allow users to input any word or part of a phrase in any
      order (i.e., Don't require the phrase to be input in order -
      the first word first, etc.)
  • Mixed search results (E.g., Combining movies and TV shows) are
    fine so long as you provide cues for users to tell items apart.

Pivoting

• Once users have found a piece of content or finished watching it,
  make it easier for them to pivot to and find similar or related
  content.
  • For example, from the details page of a specific:
    • TV episode, make it easy for users to get to all episodes
      and seasons
    • Piece of content, make it easy for users to get to similar
      content (i.e., "more like this")
    • Piece of mainstream content, make it easy for users to see
      the cast and crew and pivot to a specific cast member's
      filmography
• Pivoting is a great way to keep users engaged with a topic in which
  they've already expressed interest.

Content bookmarking

• When users find content of interest, provide an easy and fast way
  for them to find it again.
  • Common features that accomplish this include:
    • Adding an item to a 'watch list'; for episodic content, make
      it easy to add the TV series, not just a specific episode
    • A list of 'recently watched' items
    • 'Watch next' is great for episodic content (See below)
    • 'Resume watching' is great for unfinished content (See
      below). However, in order for 'resume watching' to work
      effectively, 'watch list' and/or 'recently watched' need to
      be offered as well.

Resuming video playback

• Users may start a video and then stop it before finishing it. The
  app must make it easy for users to easily and quickly:
  • Find this recently watched video again
  • Resume playback from where they left off
  • Restart playback from the beginning of the video (Without having
    to rewind)
• Since Roku users tend to own more than one Roku player/TV, it is
  important that the information needed to support this capability be
  server-based so that it can be accessed and used regardless of the
  playback device being used.
• When resuming playback, be sure to actually start the video a few
  seconds back from the actual resume point (E.g., 3-5 seconds back).
  This will help users identify a familiar scene and acknowledge that
  the system is truly picking up where they left off.

Playing the next logical item

• For any episodic content or playlist scenario, once the current
  video finishes, the system should make it super easy to watch the
  next episode or item in the playlist.
• Many apps are seeing an increase in viewing hours and general app stickiness when providing this sort of functionality.
• This is usually done in one of two ways:
  • Auto-play
    • Playlist scenarios: The app automatically begins
      playback of the next item in the playlist. In such cases, be
      sure the next video is introduced (E.g., Buffering or loading screen shows video title).
    • Episodic content scenarios: The app provides information
      about the next episode to be played and a countdown timer.
      Users can exit back into the app's main UI, or press OK
      to accept and start playback of the next episode, or do
      nothing and let the timer expire so playback starts
      automatically.
  • Play next
    • Content finishes playing and users are returned to the UI
      and offered an easy way to play the next item.
      • For example, users are returned to that content's
        details page which offers a simple option to play or go
        to the next episode, or go to the full list of episodes.
• If your app offers episodic content, then it must show users
  which episodes have been watched already.
  • Typical solution involves showing a progress bar with each
    episode.
  • Users can see if they have watched an episode completely,
    partially, or not at all.
  • This is an easy manual way for users to see which episode to
    watch next.

BIFs/Trick mode

• When users are rewinding, fast-forwarding, or generally trying to
  move within a video playback, they are effectively doing a search to
  find that right point to resume watching.
• Rewinding or fast-forwarding blindly with only a time marker is no
  longer an adequate solution. Instead, the experience can be
  more effective and satisfying as a 'visual search.'
• To that end, all video navigation must be visual so users can
  actually see/preview the video they are navigating:

  • Enable video scrubbing

  • Show BIFs or key-frames

    

Instant replay

• The ability to press a single button and have the system
  automatically skip back about 5-10 seconds and resume playback is a
  very convenient and loved feature.
• Additionally, most use this feature because they did not hear a
  piece of dialog. Roku's closed-captioning's default setting is to
  show on instant replay. Activating instant replay enables the user
  to see/read what they may have not heard.

Simplified transactions

• Requiring users to supply credit card information during your
  app's set up may cause some users to drop-out.
• Waiting and asking users to supply credit card information right
  before a transaction (E.g., Movie rental) is a hurdle many are not
  willing to jump.
• Obviously, you would be creating speed-bumps with either route, but
  there is a more simple and pain-free route for your audience; Roku Pay makes it as easy as one-click to set up an account,
  maximizing the number of users signing up and transacting.