Shelley Endicott
All work Interviews and preference testing, new streaming guide product

What streamers actually want

A new product was being explored to help people navigate an increasingly fragmented streaming landscape. I interviewed streaming users to understand which problems were actually worth solving, then ran a 69-person preference and comprehension study to see whether the brand communicated what the product did.

My role
UX researcher, early design phase
Methods
5 interviews, unmoderated study
When
Early 2026
Tools
Lyssna, Confluence, Jira

1Interviews

I interviewed five people who each pay for several streaming services. They ranked their streaming frustrations, talked me through how they find something to watch, and reacted to feature ideas.

Source: my interview notes, 5 participants. Names withheld.

The biggest problem isn't what to watch. It's where.Participants routinely went outside their streaming apps to search. Google was a common first stop, while one participant used JustWatch. One participant spent up to 10 to 15 minutes hunting across apps almost daily. Another said the answer should take about 30 seconds.

Interviews: ranked first by 3 of 5, near the top for a 4th.

People pay for things they don't use, and can't always tell what they're paying for. One participant wasn't sure which services his phone and cable bundles even included. Another had paid to rent a movie that turned out to be free on a service they already had.

Recommendations happen outside the apps. Every recent recommendation people mentioned came by text or in person. One participant keeps a running list on their phone.

Three opportunities came out of the interviews:

Universal search + pricingShow where content is available, whether it's already included in a user's subscriptions, and current rental or purchase prices elsewhere.
Subscription intelligenceHelp users understand total spend, unused services, bundles, and when to activate or cancel subscriptions.
Price alertsNotify users when rental or purchase prices fall, so they don't have to keep checking.

One participant described his parents struggling with streaming complexity, suggesting an additional audience worth exploring.

2Do the logos say what it does?

The design team had nine logo options in three groups. I set up an unmoderated study in Lyssna. People picked a favorite in each group, then answered one open question: what do you think this product does, and what gave you that impression?

I planned for 25 to 40 people and got 69: 28 casual viewers, 25 heavy streamers, and 16 sports fans.

Source: Lyssna export, 69 responses, March 27 to 29, 2026.

Votes per logo option, by group

Group 1
3332
Group 2
242421
Group 3
292713

Every group ended in a near tie. Margins this small can't pick a winner on preference alone.

Preference was a tie. Meaning was the real signal.Only about half of people described what the product actually does. Many who got it right said the name told them, not the logo. The most common wrong guess was that it was a streaming service itself.

Open-ended answers: I coded all 69 by hand. Counts are approximate.

Play-button marks read as YouTube or a video player. A 3D-glasses mark made a few people think it was for 3D movies. So picking from the top two in each group wouldn't fix the real issue. Whichever mark the team chose needed to let the name do the explaining, and avoid symbols that say "this is a video player."

Together, the studies exposed two different risks: whether the product was solving a problem people actually had, and whether people could understand what the product was before they ever used it.

3Limits I'd flag

Not covered: the final logo and product decisions came after my part of the project.