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Twitch Bank

Save and spend your Twitch channel points on more exciting benefits.

OVERVIEW

A new way to spend your channel points

Duration:

5 weeks

Role:

UX/UI Designer

Type:

DesignLab UX Academy
Capstone 2: Add a Feature

The Twitch Bank is a new way to spend your channel points on site-wide, creator specific, and sponsored rewards.

  • Additional feature for spending unused points

  • Does not take away from Twitch’s original channel points feature

BACKGROUND

Twitch channel points

  • Incentive-based feature

  • Earn points by watching, following, and participating in chat.

  • Redeem points for in-chat rewards set by the streamer.

  • It encourages viewer interaction and creates a sense of community within the stream

 
TERMINOLOGY

  • Twitch Streamer: a person who live streams or creates live content on Twitch.

  • Twitch Viewer (or Chatter): a person who watches live streams on Twitch.
     

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EXAMPLE OF TWITCH CHANNEL POINT REWARDS SYSTEM
THE CHALLENGE

Improving user engagement when using Twitch channel points

Issues with the Twitch channel points feature:

  • Usage of the feature by the streamer may be used inconsistently.

  • Viewers may not be interested in the streamer’s incentives.

 

Adding an additional feature should be aimed to increase the redemption rate of channel points on Twitch.

RESEARCH: COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

Do Twitch’s competitors have a similar feature?

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  • 1/3 of the competitors have a feature similar to Twitch channel points.

  • YouTube and Facebook do not have an official channel points feature but streamers add download a third party browser plugin that emulates the feature.

RESEARCH: SURVEY

Twitch viewers accumulate channels points and don’t spend them.

I conducted a survey geared toward Twitch users that asked them how many channel points they have for their most watched streamer and how they use the points.

21

survey participants

8

survey participants

5/8

rarely/never spend their channel points

IDEATION

How might I utilize channel points in order to make it useful for a wider audience?

💡Idea #1

Sitewide points system or “bank”

  • Deposit and withdraw channel points from your most watched channels

  • Save and spend points on sitewide rewards

💡Idea #2

Marketplace to redeem channel points on rewards from Twitch affiliated companies and/or a specific streamer rewards

  • rewards include games, physical products, and more

SOLUTION

Twitch Bank

A place to deposit channel points to spend on sitewide rewards and Twitch affiliated products.

​

I combined both ideas to create a feature that has a points bank and a marketplace.

I started by exploring different locations for Twitch Bank.

  • First location: side navigation bar with the user's followed and recommended channels.​

    • The marketplace is located on a separate page.​

    • I did not go through with this location because it felt out of place and unrelated to the other items in that area. ​

  • Second iteration: top navigation bar with "Browse" and "Following" pages.

    • It makes more sense to place the Twitch Bank here.​

    • Placing it here would help the feature gain more traffic since it is in a more noticeable area.

    • The marketplace is located on the same page.

USER TESTING

Users reported a straightforward design during testing.

Task:

Users chose their preference between the drop down (DD) or pop up overlay (PO) iterations.
 

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Drop down (DD)

Pop up overlay (PO)

RESULTS

6/6

users prefer the PO iteration.

All users thought the tasks were straightforward.

4/6

users reported the DD iteration was less intuitive.

FINAL DESIGN
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Twitch Bank is located in the top navigation bar with the other pages in order to increase visibility of the feature.

Marketplace is located underneath the Bank section. Users are able to see their points in their bank while scrolling through the Marketplace.

Users are able to deposit and withdraw their channel points.
A pop up overlay will appear when either button is selected.
The button to overlay pattern is common pattern on the Twitch website for general purchases.

Categories are listed at the top of the Marketplace section. This is the same pattern that is used on the front page of Twitch.

Marketplace items are organized similarly to how Twitch organized the stream thumbnails on the front page.

TASK FLOW
BENEFITS TO ADDING THIS FEATURE

Twitch Bank can help increase user engagement.

  • More appealing rewards that would interest users

  • Provides an alternative option to spending channel points

  • Increases promotion of Twitch affiliated brands and streamer merchandise

 

Key KPIs to measure success:

​

  • Unique visitors to page

  • Rate of redemption of points

  • Number of views for each reward vs. redemption of reward

REFLECTION

Users favor familiar patterns.


As a Twitch user myself, it was very interesting learning more about the website especially the Twitch channel points feature. I was glad that I was able to get a good amount of feedback from other Twitch users on their thoughts on channel points. Their feedback was very important on how the direction of this project would go.


I learned through the iteration process that repeating familiar patterns already embedded in the website was more favorable than patterns unfamiliar to users. This project also helped me take into account more of what the business would want users to see.

PROTOTYPE
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