Made for
San Jose City College

2024 - Using a variety of techniques and principles,

analyze YouTube Shorts and suggest changes.

Nielson’s Heuristics Analysis

Visitors should be able to access YouTube Shorts and create a curated experience. We reviewed the process of creating an account, interacting, sharing, and saving videos.

These are the Heuristics where Shorts struggled the most:

  • Captions and Login Status are unclear: Users aren’t able to tell if they’re logged in or if captions are active.

  • Button styles, account creation elements and filters are inconsistent.

  • There is no separation between Shorts and YouTube videos. Options for sharing videos are limited, and there is no way to go back after entering data during account creation.

We then conducted surveys to better understand the platform’s Strengths and Weaknesses, the primary motivation behind user engagement, and gauge interest in a direct messaging system for Shorts.

Survey Analysis

Half of users noted they used Shorts once a day, or more

Three-quarters of users thought they would NOT be very likely to use a direct messaging system

A third of users noted encountering unwanted content occasionally or more

A quarter of users noted the platform as functioning poorly overall.

User Interviews

The aim of these interviews were to better understand how people used the platform, including how & why people share videos.

4 different users were interviewed:

  • Computer programmer

    “I wish that it only copied the link…having some stuff like “check out this YouTube Short” and the URL is a bit annoying”

  • Software developer

    “Copy-Pasting a link to someone is easy (on a computer)… I can’t be bothered to share via mobile”

  • Media Manager
    “It’s frustrating when the sharing isn’t intuitive enough to remember it’s a specific video (that I liked once) than my entire shorts page.”

  • University Student

    “I don’t share Shorts with others because they’re a pain to share. On desktop it’s fine, but I don’t want to watch Shorts on desktop.”

Many noted frustration with only being able to share content through other means of communication

Many noted that Shorts feels much more disorganized than competitors, due to lack of content filters

Everyone noted difficulty within the mobile platform when sharing content

Final Synthesis and Analysis

Platforms like YouTube Shorts aim to offer a smooth, easily understandable entertainment experience, but currently, several things prevent it from reaching that goal.

Recommendations include:

  • Adjusting UI for comfort

  • Allow flexibility with sharing content

  • Better relay the role that YouTube Shorts plays

  • Adjust navigation consistency

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