YouTube Mobile Video Creation
YouTube Mobile Video Creation
YouTube’s first-ever in-app camera with redesigned mobile video upload flow and video transformation tools.
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YouTube // 2015-16
Product design, mobile UX
My Role
Led the end-to-end redesign of the mobile upload flow and video transformation tools. Led design for the first-ever YouTube in-app camera: feature ideation, prototyping, and launching.
The Challenge
As more people are relying on mobile phones for video, there was need for a casual, mobile-first video creation experience at the forefront of YouTube’s ecosystem. At the time, the YouTube app could not record videos, and the existing upload flow was virtually undiscoverable. How might we design a lightweight video creation experience that caters to a billion users?
The Outcome
YouTube’s first-ever in-app video camera, redesigned lightweight video transformation tools, and redesigned end-to-end upload flow with improved discoverability. Increased weekly uploads by ~10%.
Understanding our users
Only a small percentage of YouTube users are existing video creators. Our primary target audience were the untapped casual creators — those who didn’t have much video editing experience but were potential lightweight video creators.
Target population
PERSONAS
Mapping the end-to-end flow
* New to the YouTube app
YouTube Camera
For YouTube’s first-ever in-app camera, we wanted to provide a unique, differentiating camera feature so casual creators will want to use the camera time and again.
Camera feature explorations
Live switch cam
Switching between front and back cameras without stopping video recording makes it easy to add commentary and reactions to videos.
Favorite moments
A user can bookmark one or more moments while recording for easy editing later.
Stickers
Users can record videos with stickers overlayed on top of their content.
In-camera filters
Users can record videos with different filters applied.
Final design
After multiple iterations of prototyping and user testing, the live switch cam feature proved to be the most popular and most versatile.
Camera entry point redesign
The existing uploads entry point was extremely difficult to find. Improving its discoverability was the first step in improving the video creation flow.
Original design
The original uploads entry point was hidden behind a hamburger menu and extremely difficult to find, and identified as the most broken user journey in the YouTube app.
Explorations
Navigation icon
Globally accessible, but blends in with the top nav.
FAB on home page
Accessible on app open, but available only from one page.
FAB on account page
Natural place for creators to look for entry point, but not obvious on app open.
Swipe right
Globally accessible, but not obvious.
FInal design
FAB on home page and account. After looking at the pros and cons of all options, we chose to launch two entry points for a stronger design.
Video transformation tools
By making it easy and fun for casual users to improve their videos, this user group will be more likely to return again.
Original designs
I partnered with another designer to launch the original designs for the transformation tools UI (trimming video, adding music, adding filters). However, this UI is crowded and not scalable if we were to add more features.
Information architecture
By separating video transformation tools and metadata into two steps, there was more screen real estate dedication to scaling the transformation tools and making the video the hero.
Final design
Final design features a scalable, lightweight UI.