Redesigning the YouTube sidebar
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Introduction
As a user of YouTube, I tend to struggle to find importance in the features listed in the sidebar. Besides a few of the options listed, most of them could be discarded and no one could even know.
In this UX design case study I will put up some changes I think will be effective in increasing the sidebar experience of the average YouTube user.
The problems
Problems I found in the sidebar were:
1. Repetition of Subscriptions
At the top of the side bar and individually listing the subscriptions at the bottom, causes a lot of unnecessary clutter. The suggestions at the bottom are placed in a seemingly random order which does not help users at all. Perhaps if they were ordered according to user’s watching history it would be more suitable but as it currently is then it is not quite helpful.
2. Too many playlists shown.
If users have a lot of playlists, then them being listed under the ‘Library’ section individually causes a nightmare when trying to search for playlists. Fortunately, these playlists are sorted according to when last viewed. However, if you continuously rotate between multiple playlists this is not quite helpful as you find yourself scrolling through a somewhat ordered list of playlists until you locate the playlist you want.
3. Repetition of Explore content
I’m starting to recognize a pattern here. The problem here seems to be that the sidebar is being ineffectively utilized, cluttered and repetitive. Content in the ‘More from YouTube’ section is the exact same content that is repeated in the Explore page.
4. Settings seem to be far away from home.
Lastly, at the bottom of the sidebar listing settings that user’s can edit to customize their YouTube experience. The issue with settings being on the sidebar seems that it’s out of place with all other options there to display content for users to enjoy. If only they could be placed at the user account settings (where the profile picture is). Wait, they already are there? I guess this goes back again to the issue of cluttering and repetitive content that hinders the usability and efficiency of a tiresome but powerful section of the page.
Redesigns
In the following steps, I will be addressing the listed problems above in order to reduce clutter and repetitiveness of the sidebar and shine more light to a seemingly ignored section of the page.
1. Completely removing the individual Subscription section
My first idea is to remove the Subscriptions section as it does not help much when looking for specific subscriptions users have. Instead, I will be optimizing the Subscriptions page making it possible to toggle between videos of user subscriptions and being able to directly locate subscriptions from a subscription list.
2. Creating a playlists page
In this page, users will have all their playlists available and can sort them according to how they feel whether:
- Last Updated
- First Created
- A-Z
- Z-A
- Most popular
- Etc.….
This allows users to get a customizable experience and provides a simple route to locate their playlists.
3. Creating a dropdown under Explore
Making a simple but significant adjustment at the Explore option can help highlight hidden and under-utilized options in the sidebar. Also, by creating this dropdown it now creates a dialog like, “Explore Music, Explore Gaming, etc.…”. This gets the user more open minded instead of feeling like they do not belong on those pages because they aren’t familiar with those interests. It gives users a more friendly and inviting feeling.
4. Removing settings from the sidebar
With all these settings being already available at a different section of the page, I think it’s suitable just to remove them from the sidebar and have users access them from the ‘Account’ section.
