UX user experience mobile app improvements
Necessary changes to the mobile app from a user experience (both iOS/iPadOS/Android)
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I’ve been on this platform since it was called Justin.TV and 4pp was playing clock tower and Fatal Frame and has seen how this app has stagnated over the years. It just does not cut it anymore and it can’t keep up with competition. The user experience is quite poor on the smaller screens and here is how to address that:
Step 1. The player and chat layout needs a complete overhaul( the new layout makes no sense as it is cluttered and has only one message at the time, too big, not transparent enough and too much annoying static icons like bits comment etc that distracts you from enjoying the stream.
SOLUTION: make a minimalistic chat box that hovers atop the FULL SCREEN player. The user MUST be able to set size of chatbox, TRANSPARENCY and size of text according to their liking. At least have some presets so users like me can have a non intrusive little chat box to feel part of chat experience without breaking immersion.
IMPORTANT: an excellent example would be to tune into streamer “Elajjaz” (Mizkif, extraemily and many more are adopting this as well) and take note of how he integrates a small transparent chat onto the full screen player on his end. The problem is that there will be a significant delay since the chat is on his end. But the layout is brilliant! A lot of other streamers do this too and it should be the new standard.
Doing this will remove the black bars that you get on theater mode etc. small screens definitively benefit from a full screen with chat experience. But I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep it customizable and minimalistic like the streamers set it up to be. Non intrusive! Should not be in the way of the content at all (size and transparency). Also keep in mind that various streamers have different cam placements so consider letting the app remember what setting the user want for every streamer?
Step 2: Bring back the toggle for “ notify me about new app updates”. I’m getting nagged into insanity 1-2 times a day about this and can’t image paying for a service that does this tbh. It never takes no for an answer. I want to check for updates manually when I have time!
Step 3: bring back the option to use the old MiniPlayer when you swipe down on a stream, instead of the clumsy slow picture-in-picture player that you use now. The old one was snappier and you could tap anywhere on it to go back into the stream. The new one needs to be tapped once to bring up the options to either close or go into it. It’s super sluggish!
I hope you find this advice useful from a loooong time user! A lot of people are complaining about how bad the experience is and this would be great improvement for sure.
Pip