Project Overview

Background

Mammalz 2.0 mobile was the first project in redesigning and redeveloping Mammalz, an online community platform for user generated nature, science, and adventure content. The original app intended to support photos, videos, live streaming, 360/VR and audio content as well as a discussion board. The founders decided to discontinue the mobile and web app to focus on a rebuild. They concluded that a live streaming platform would be a better fulfill their company mission and address the problem they originally set out to solve.

Objective

Design and develop Mammalz 2.0 MVP, a live streaming platform dedicated to nature, science, and adventure. Design should maximize community engagement. Because this is a global community, keep in mind global restrictions and limitations to live streaming.

Outcome

This project was paused at wireframes pending investment. Mammalz 2.0 wireframe included an in app currency, perpetual channel chat, creator studio, equal opportunity discoverability, and support for live streams and scheduled live streams.

Role

Lead UX Researcher
UX Designer

Team

CEO
COO/Head of Content
Head of Marketing

Time

Ongoing

About MammalzPBC️

💡The Problem Mammalz Wants To Solve

For far too long, creativity and economic opportunity have been stunted by the gatekeepers of nature media. Current nature media is expensive and time-consuming to make, therefore only a select few can afford to make them. This leaves thousands of would-be creators with no chance of pursuing their dreams and millions of viewers around the world with limited choices of content, more importantly, a very narrow perspective of the natural world.

🌄 The Mammalz Mission

Create a sustainable revenue stream for nature media creators around the world
Inspire viewers to pursue deeper connections with the natural world
Disrupt the traditional nature perspective through diversity, equity, and inclusion
Generate a sustainable sense of community among like minded individuals around the world
Educate viewers about relatively unknown topics in natural sciences
Promote mental and relational wellness through consistent community interactions
Empower viewers to create a positive impact for biodiversity, climate, and natural resources

Understand

Reflection on Mammmalz 1.0

Key Insights

Life streaming yielded the highest community engagement against photos, videos, audio, and 360/VR content.
Outdoor IRL live streaming yielded the most community engagement (rather than a lecture format live stream).
While live streaming had the most community engagement, nature media creators were not used to this format of content.

Pain points

There was no watch count indication for live streams.
There was no ability to schedule live streams or promote them on the Mammalz app.
Lag between streamer and audience was ~30+ seconds.
Because our community was global, overseas streamers were not able to get the same amount of engagement/views as domestic streamers.

Secondary Research

Understanding the Live Streaming Space and Market

Live Streaming potential

The average expert streamer can make between $3000-$5000/month
Stream shopping - selling products in real time
In person events are transitioning to live streams reaching bigger audiences
Live streaming is a continuously growing entertainment landscape

Market Research

Twitch leads the live streaming market with a year to year growth of 96% in terms of hours streamed
Youtube, Facebook and Instagram are catching up
Gamers, musicians, and educators have adopted live streaming
Estimated global live streaming market size can rise to $247,275 million by 2027 - Market Research Future (MRFR)

Global Restrictions Research

🎯 Goal

Our main goal in Global Restrictions Research is to understand the technical barriers related to live streaming in countries around the world.

Key Findings

The speed test global index is continuing to grow for both mobile and broadband.
~54% of countries would have enough mobile bandwidth to support a 4K live stream given the proper equipment.
~70% of countries can support a HD live stream given the proper equipment.
Stripe payment infrastructure supports 44 countries' currencies.

Understanding What Makes an Engaged Community

🎯 Goal

To understand how to build a community platform, the team researched several apps that have had success in building a niche community.

Key Findings

Promoted two-way communication rather than reaction interactivity (like button)
Gamification
Community statuses and hierarchy
Insights dashboard for Creators so they can understand their individual communities

User Research

Community Survey

🎯 Goal

Gain insight into who our community was outside of Mammalz, as well as, look into participation habits on live streams.

51 participants
Age 18 - 65

Key Insights

35% have a job in the field of nature, science, or adventure
74% explore the outdoors multiple times a week to every day
71% said they participate in live stream chats while 29% do not

Main reasons for participating in a live stream chat

Asking the streamer a question
Talking to others in the chat

Main reasons for NOT participating in a live stream chat

Didn't know what to say
Was just listening

Pain points in IRL Live Streaming Survey

🎯 Goal

Gain insight into the current barriers and pain points in live streaming. Affinity diagrams were used to organize the short answer responses.

14 participants: All IRL streamers or nature media creators
Age 24 - 44

Technology Pain

Complex and expensive IRL live stream set up
Outdated technology

Platform Pain

Discoverability on main streaming platforms (Twitch, Facebook Live, Youtube) is non existent

Connectivity Pain

Bad connection in more exciting nature areas
Data is expensive

Growing Pain

Getting all of your audience to participate is challenging

Suggested Areas of Improvement

User friendly switch between camera views and devices
Reasonably priced hardware
Better discoverability
Economic opportunity without “selling out”
Support for longer nature excursions

Analyze

User Personas

Personas were split between creators and viewers of content. Personas were made to cover all potential type of user of Mammalz based on the above research and the teams knowledge of the current Mammalz community.

Creators

Viewers

User scenarios

User scenarios were used to put the user's live streaming experience into perspective. The team then went through all scenarios commenting, ideating for, and questioning the experiences.

Competitor Analysis

Competitive analysis was split between me and our head of content, who focused on the strengths and weaknesses of the creator programs, that each platform offered. The following platforms were looked at based on their successful streaming and community growth.

Ideate

Narrowing the requirements

With all the information we collected it was time for the team to sit down and lay out the requirements for Mammalz 2.0 mobile MVP. There were many additional things to take into consideration including potential investment amount and white labeled software that we decided to use in order to create Mammalz 2.0 quickly and efficiently. During this discussion our goal was to understand development capabilities and limitations and confirm the requirements aligned with the Mammalz vision.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In order to further address the connectivity and financial pain points of creators, Mammalz’s Head of Content lead a separate project creating a Mammalz Creator Partnerships Program that would assign statuses to creators throughout the app. These partners would have requirements every month that when met would unlock different forms of financial help and perks.

App Map

User Flows

Before sketching, I created user flows to wrap my head around the depth of each requirement. There were an extensive amount of user flows due to the 2 different types of user views – that of the content viewer, and that of the content creator.

Sketches

I presented the user flows to the team so that they could check that all requirements were met. Afterwards, I sketched out my ideas for the app before moving to wireframing.

Wireframes

Once I chose the sketches I wanted to move forward with, I broke up the task of wireframing into sections based on the main user flows. Each wireframe was annotated and prototyped to explain the design to future designers that worked on the project.

Main Navigation + Discoverability

Main Features

Explore

Featured Section
Live Streams + Upcoming Streams
Additional live stream sections to be used for highlighting new, niche, and diversed creators

Following

All content created by those a user is following along with a list of people that user is following

Habitat

Profile
Live channel (where their stream and chat show up during an active live stream)
Seeds bank (in app currency)
Creator studio
Settings + Link to any referall programs made by Mammalz.

Viewing a Live Stream + Going Live

Main Features

Viewing a live stream

Live perpetual chat
Mammalz Emotes Keyboard
Landscape view with expand and collapse chat

Going live

Streaming using phone
Streaming using 3rd party encoder
Saved stream details
Audio muting
Camera switch
Expandable and collapseable live chat
6-12 second stream lag

Seeds Exchange (in-app currency)

Main Features

Seeds Bank

buy seeds to use throughout the platform
purchased seeds: those bought from the platform
earned seeds: those given to a user by another user
earned seeds may be exchanged for money given the user has the equivalent of $50 and is a partnered creator with Mammalz

Sending seeds in a live stream

buy seeds to use throughout the platform
send seeds to streamer or other user in chat

Sending seeds in a user’s profile

buy seeds to use throughout the platform
send seeds to user

Creator Studio

Main Features

Stream Details + Settings
Stream schedule
Video + photo upload
Past stream management
Stream clip management
Streaming insights: Seeds Earned, Hours Streamed, Stream views, Follower data

Scheduling a Live Stream

Main Features

Scheduling a date, time, and duration of stream
Stream preview upload: 60 second video or image
Scheduled stream details: title, description, tags, category, language, custom notification, age restrictions, and auto subtitles

User Profile

Main Features

About section
Streamer schedule
Past streams
Posted videos and photos
Platform badges collection
Perpetual chat

Live Stream Notifications

Main Features

Setting live stream reminder
Notification 1 hour before stream
Notification at start of stream

Getting the Rest of the Team Involved

To get the rest of the team involved in the design process, I set up unmonitored alpha testing in which each member would go through the prototyped wireframes using a list of tasks. I did this in order to make sure there were no gaping holes in the prototyping when it came to usability testing with users.

Next Steps

In August 2021, this project came to a pause pending investment. Since then I have left Mammalz in pursuit of a UX career while Mammalz continues to pursue investment. However, in reflection of this design project, given investment, I propose the next steps to be:

1. Onboard outside UX/UI and development team

With additional team members Mammalz 2.0 wireframes can go through one more review before moving on to user testing.

2. User Testing Early

With prototyped wireframes Mammalz would conduct user testing for both the creator perspective and viewer perspective.

3. Iteration and Visual Design

From results of user testing, Mammalz would move to visual design.

4. Design the Platform Onboarding

Design both onboarding screen and tutorials for the app.

5. Retest and Iterate

Another user test would be necessary to make sure visual design and iterations from the last usability test prove successful.

6. Build and Launch Beta

Moving into the beta stage with the existing Mammalz community that has continued to grow outside the design and development stages.

Learnings and Reflections

The startup world is no joke. It is an on your toes experience. It was my job to lead this project while simultaneously expanding my knowledge of the UX process. My background was in cognitive science HCI where I primarily focused on user research and my intial job when I was hired for Mammalz was social media marketing. Primary and secondary research were key to empathizing with not only live streamers but nature media creators, nature lovers, scientists and adventures. Outside schooling was key to making sure this process of thinking was done effectively.

If I were to do this project again I would schedule user interviews to gain a deeper understanding of nature media creators potential role in the live streaming space. I would also implement interactions into the wireframe before user testing.

I left Mammalz to take a step back and focus on my ux design education and career. I still believe in the Mammalz mission and the social and environmental impact this product would make.