Netflix Reimagined: Designing a Personalized & Immersive Streaming Experience
ROLE
Product Designer, responsible for user research, ideation, wireframing, prototyping, and testing.
Timeline
8 weeks
tools
Figma, Fig-jam, Google Forms, Maze, Airtable, Notion
Conceptual UX Case Study
This is a self-initiated project created to explore and improve the user experience of the Netflix platform. It is not affiliated with or commissioned by Netflix.
Netflix is part of millions of daily routines, but the current experience misses opportunities to connect more deeply with users' emotions, environments, and relationships.
This case study explores how Netflix can evolve beyond content delivery to offer mood-based viewing, smart home integration, shared profiles for households, and an AI-powered assistant, creating an emotionally intelligent, immersive streaming experience.
I applied the Double Diamond design process, blending user research, iterative design, and strategic thinking to build a seamless product vision. This project showcases not only my UX design skills, but also my ability to connect design decisions to real user pain points.
🎯 Problem Statement & Goal
Netflix is more than just a streaming platform, it’s a part of people’s daily rhythm. Whether users are unwinding after a long day, bonding with loved ones, or seeking an emotional escape, Netflix is where stories meet life’s moments.
However, as the landscape of entertainment and user expectations evolve, Netflix’s role is being reshaped. People’s viewing habits are changing, and they now expect more than just an endless scroll of content. From discovering shows based on mood to integrating smart home technologies and AI assistants, users are seeking a seamless, personalized, and emotionally intuitive experience.
The Opportunity
This case study explores how Netflix can elevate its service by moving beyond simply delivering content and become a more immersive, emotionally intelligent, and personalized companion that aligns with every type of moment in users' lives.
The Goal
To reimagine the Netflix experience by:
Designing a mood-based discovery system
Integrating an AI personal assistant for smarter, more human-like recommendations
Making content discovery feel effortless, relevant, and emotionally in sync
Together, these features aim to reduce decision fatigue, increase user satisfaction, and bring emotional intelligence to the streaming experience.
🔄 Process
The Double Diamond Process
To create a seamless and personalized Netflix experience, I followed the Double Diamond framework. This structured approach helped me explore user needs, define key design challenges, ideate innovative solutions, and refine them through testing and iteration.
🔍 Discover:
I began by researching the frustrations and expectations of Netflix users. Key findings revealed that people were looking for a more intuitive way to discover content based on their current emotional state and that watching shows with others often disrupted personalized recommendations.
✍🏻 Define:
Synthesizing insights from the research, I identified three core opportunities:
Mood-based discovery giving users a way to select content that fits their emotional needs.
Shared viewing profiles creating a feature where users could watch content together without affecting their own personal algorithm.
AI-powered assistance developing a personal assistant to provide users with quick, detailed information about shows and casts.
🏗️ Develop:
I explored and prototyped solutions for these features:
Mood Selection & Recommendations: Integrated mood-based content discovery that allowed users to choose their mood and receive tailored recommendations.
Home Ecosystem Integration: Incorporated an option to sync with smart home ecosystems, adjusting the atmosphere (lighting, sound and temperature) based on the user's chosen mood.
Separate Viewing Profiles: Designed a feature where users could create a separate profile for shared viewing experiences, ensuring that their personal content preferences weren't disrupted.
AI Personal Assistant: Developed an AI assistant that could instantly provide information about shows, characters, and cast, enhancing the user experience.
📦 Deliver:
Through careful testing and iteration, I fine tuned the features to ensure they provided a smooth, engaging experience. User feedback highlighted how the mood-based discovery system and AI assistant improved content discovery, while the shared profile feature offered a new way to enjoy Netflix with others without affecting personal preferences.
🔍 User Research
To ensure the redesign of Netflix aligned with real user needs, I conducted both qualitative interviews and a quantitative survey with 15 participants across a wide age range and cultural backgrounds (ages 22–45, from the US, Canada, UK, Egypt, France, and Germany). The focus was to validate concepts such as mood-based content discovery, smart home integration, shared profiles, and an in-content AI assistant.
To uncover user pain points, I conducted:
15 user interviews
A quantitative survey across 6 countries (ages 22–45)
Informal conversations and competitor benchmarking
🎯 Key Insights
Mood drives discovery:
80% of users prefer to browse based on how they feel. Indecisiveness and "decision fatigue" were major frustrations, especially when winding down after a long day.Smart homes meet streaming:
73% were excited about automatic smart home adjustments (lights, sound, ambiance) for "movie mode."Shared watching, messy algorithms:
66% said watching with others negatively affects their recommendations, and 93% supported a shared profile that blends preferences without disrupting individual algorithms.AI is welcome, when it's helpful:
60% wanted a voice or AI assistant to ask questions about shows, cast members, or content recommendations in real-time.
💬 “Sometimes I just want Netflix to know I had a bad day and suggest something light… not make me scroll for 30 minutes.” — UX Designer, 24
💬 “Watching with my kids ruins my whole watch history.” — Parent, 30
💬 “I’d love for Netflix to dim the lights and start playing when I say 'movie night.’” — Engineer, 28
💬 “Scrolling feels endless. I want something like a ‘mood button.’” — Developer, 38
From students and professionals to parents and therapists, the emotional role Netflix plays in users' daily lives was clear—and so was the opportunity to make the experience smarter, more intuitive, and more emotionally aware.
🧠 Key Takeaways
No major competitor offers mood-based content discovery, leaving a gap for emotionally intelligent content curation.
Only Amazon and Apple begin to explore smart home integration, but these are limited to voice assistants and not deeply tied to user experience.
Shared viewing profiles are nonexistent across all platforms.
Amazon’s X-Ray is the closest feature to an AI assistant, but it is passive and lacks conversational depth.
🎯 Opportunities for Netflix
Differentiate by leading in emotional intelligence through mood-aware recommendations.
Innovate with seamless smart home integration that enhances the viewing environment.
Solve real frustrations by offering a truly shared profile experience.
Delight users with a responsive AI assistant that understands context and enhances content discovery.
👤 User Persona
Sarah
The Overwhelmed Professional
Age: 29
Location: San Francisco, CA
Occupation: UX Designer
Tech Comfort: High
Lifestyle: Lives alone, smart home setup
Pain Points:
Feels emotionally drained after work
Hates scrolling endlessly
Wants effortless, mood-based viewing
🎯 Goals:
Quickly find something light to watch based on her mood
Have a seamless “movie night” experience with smart lighting/sound
Get quick show info without opening IMDb
James & Lily
The Sharing Couple
Age: 33 & 32
Location: Toronto, Canada
Occupation: Software Engineer + Marketer
Tech Comfort: Medium
Lifestyle: Cohabiting couple
Pain Points:
Different content tastes
Watching together messes up recommendations
🎯 Goals:
Watch shows together without compromising individual preferences
Maintain personal recommendations
Discover shows they both like easily
🗺️ Journey Map
Personas
🔄 User Flow
The user flow below captures how viewers navigate key features introduced in the redesign: mood-based discovery, smart home integration, and AI interaction. It focuses on enabling a seamless, personalized experience—from mood selection to real-time adjustments and voice control.
Key Interactions:
🎬 Mood-based personalized recommendations
• Users can select a mood to receive personalized movie suggestions.
• The AI assistant suggests genres or movies based on the selected mood.
🏠 Smart home integration for mood setting
• Netflix can adjust smart home devices like lighting and temperature for mood enhancement.
• If no smart home devices are connected, on-screen settings like dark mode can be adjusted for a better viewing experience.
🎥 On-screen mode adjustments for mood
• The app can change interface settings like light/dark mode and screen brightness for optimal viewing.
• Users can adjust room temperature and lighting for a customized mood.
🗣 AI assistant interaction for playback control
• The AI assistant waits for voice commands to perform tasks like pausing or skipping scenes.
• Users can switch profiles for personalized recommendations and maintain viewing preferences.
Heads up: AI outputs can be misleading, or even flat-out wrong.
🔍 Learnings – Mood Selection Feature
Users appreciated the concept of adjusting Netflix based on their emotional state, finding it innovative and personal.
The drop-down interaction was mostly intuitive, though some users hesitated due to unclear wording (e.g., “AI Smart Mode” could be more descriptive).
The home environment popup was engaging, but users needed clearer context on device compatibility, especially since smart home integration is more feasible through TV setups than mobile.
Switching to vertical scroll in the high-fidelity prototype improved usability and content visibility.
Overall, users responded positively but expected more visual confirmation or feedback after mood selection to validate that their choice was applied.
🧪Heat Maps and Testing Results
Mood-Based Viewing Feature
Misclicks: High (80% on one screen, 50% on another)
Feedback: Users struggled to identify expected touchpoints,
suggesting unclear affordances or icons.
Recommendation: Improve visual clarity (e.g. label toggle, add microcopy or animation).
🎨 High-Fidelity Prototype
he Shared Profile feature allows two users to create and manage a joint profile for shared viewing preferences. The flow begins with selecting the “Add Profile” option, followed by choosing between a personal or shared profile. Users then complete setup settings such as shared preferences or parental controls. Upon successful creation, a confirmation screen appears. The design mirrors the existing Netflix aesthetic for consistency, while introducing intuitive UI enhancements to support collaboration and ease of use.
🔍 Learnings – Shared Viewing Profile
Users quickly understood and appreciated the idea of creating a shared profile for joint viewing preferences.
The choice between individual and shared profiles was clear and effective.
Setup steps were easy to follow, contributing to a smooth onboarding experience.
The confirmation screen gave a strong sense of completion and success.
🧪Heat Maps and Testing Results
Due to the natural flow of the prototype and time constraints, most participants did not reach the AI Assistant Buddy feature during testing. As a result, no heat map data was collected for this screen.
🔍 Next Steps: In future testing sessions, I plan to adjust the prototype path or isolate this feature in a separate task to ensure it receives focused feedback and usability validation.ion).
🎨 High-Fidelity Prototype
In the high-fidelity prototype, all screens were adapted to a vertical layout to better align with user expectations and improve mobile usability. The design retains Netflix’s core brand identity while introducing subtle futuristic visual tweaks such as softened gradients, modern typography, and intuitive UI elements to reflect the smart, forward-thinking nature of the AI assistant. The experience is crafted to feel seamlessly native to Netflix, while offering a fresh, elevated interaction through the AI Buddy.
🔍 Learnings – The Netflix AI Buddy
Users found the concept of an AI assistant enhancing the viewing experience promising, particularly for offering recommendations and responding to questions about content.
Due to navigation flow limitations in the prototype, users did not reach this feature during testing, indicating a need for better screen access or clearer guidance.
An introductory screen or onboarding message could help users understand the assistant’s capabilities and encourage interaction.
The updated vertical layout and subtle UI enhancements aligned with Netflix’s brand identity while creating a modern, user-friendly interface.
🧩 Learnings and next steps
Learnings:
Through this project, I learned the importance of balancing user needs with technical feasibility. Iterating on designs and gathering user feedback revealed how small adjustments can significantly enhance usability and engagement. I also saw how critical collaboration with cross-functional teams is to ensure designs are both visually compelling and technically feasible. Most importantly, testing and user feedback highlighted the value of continuous refinement to create intuitive, user-centered solutions.
Next Steps:
The next phase involves refining the prototype based on feedback from users and stakeholders. I’ll conduct further testing to fine-tune navigation and interactive elements, ensuring a seamless user experience. Working closely with the development team, I’ll ensure smooth implementation, with detailed specs and design support. Post-launch, I’ll track user analytics to gather insights for ongoing improvements, ensuring the product continues to meet evolving user needs.