Case study
UX Design · Product Research · Mobile · TV
A private-by-default social layer for Netflix — friend circles, spoiler-safe discussion, and trusted collections that keep the story going in-app. View interactive prototype
UX/UI lead · 4 weeks · 2026 · Solo designer · Mobile and TV
Tools·Figma · FigJam
Netflix Community is a four-week feature concept that turns Netflix from a utility for watching into a place to sit with a story afterward — without making consumption secondary. As UX/UI lead I owned the end-to-end process: research, IA, wireframes, and a high-fidelity prototype. The work targets platform leakage: people leave for Reddit, YouTube, WhatsApp, and IMDb because the app has nothing to say once the credits roll. Netflix already wins at algorithmic discovery. It is missing an integrated social loop.
Platform leakage. Viewers fragment the experience across Reddit, YouTube recaps, and group chats, so the social loop never comes back.
Public-by-default is the wrong model. Forums feel noisy, spoiler-heavy, and unsafe. People want intimacy — discussion inside private circles, not a bid for viral metrics.
Discovery paralysis. A huge catalog plus untrusted recs makes choosing the next title tiring, so sessions end at the credits.
Internalize the post-watch loop: private-by-default circles, spoiler-gated discussion at high-intent moments (including TV → phone), and trusted collections that turn a friend’s note into Play or Add to My List.
I audited where social discovery currently lives, then interviewed people who already talk about shows constantly — just not on Netflix. Competitors solve what to watch, but they all sit outside the viewing moment. Interviews made the product constraint obvious: social features fail when they are public-by-default.
Mapped Letterboxd, Trakt, IMDb, and Reddit. Each solves discovery or discussion off-platform, so the moment after the credits still leaks out of Netflix.
Five semi-structured sessions with power users aged 25–34. The dominant frustrations were spoiler risk and the noise of public forums; the desire was safety and intimacy inside a trusted circle.
The design insight was private-by-default. People do not want to compete for attention. They want to share trusted recs and talk immediately after the credits, with spoilers gated until they choose otherwise.
power-user interviews, ages 25–34
products in the competitive audit
task flows in usability testing
31 · Solo viewer · Oakland
“I finish a finale and have no one to talk to. Reddit is a spoiler minefield. I just want a room that waited with me.”
27 · Social watcher · Brooklyn
“I already text my friends ‘you have to watch this.’ I shouldn’t have to leave the app to send the list.”
The strategy is private-by-default — Friend Circles as digital living rooms, Trusted Collections so people can be tastemakers for their circle, and a moderated public hub so people without an active circle are not locked out. Intimacy over virality. I prioritized by whether a feature reduced leakage, protected trust, or shortened the path to the next title.
Community lives on the title page as a third tab beside Episodes and Trailers, and as a tab in Netflix navigation. Discussion is grouped by season, episode, and topic, with spoilers blurred until you have reached that episode. Collections sit in the circle, not in a public popularity contest — no follower counts, no trending ranks.
Before visual design I explored structure through rapid sketching and lo-fi — especially the Community Hub layout and Trusted Collections entry points — so information hierarchy could change cheaply. Device splits showed up early: TV is the primary viewing surface, so posting from the living room needed a connect-to-phone path. The remote never becomes a keyboard.
This is a feature inside Netflix, not a new brand. The visual work was about restraint — using the existing dark UI, and adding only the cues that make discussion feel safe: spoiler chips, circle lockups, and collection cards you can act on in one tap.
Near-black keeps watching mode intact. Red is reserved for the wordmark and the selected Community tab. Green is only for safety and match — never for likes or ranks — so the product does not start scoring people.
Netflix Black
#141414
App background
Surface
#1F1F1F
Cards and composer
Netflix Red
#E50914
Brand, selected tab
Match Green
#46D369
Safety and match states
Muted
#A7A7A7
Secondary labels
Title treatment stays Netflix-large. Community copy is smaller and denser — thoughts, not trailers. The spark mark (✦) is the only new identity cue, used on the Community tab so it can sit next to Home and New & Hot without looking like a social network.
Netflix Sans / Arial
UI, titles, and discussion
“Keep the story going.” “What stayed with you?” “Be kind. Be curious. No spoilers.” The product speaks like a living room, not a feed.
High-fidelity stays inside Netflix’s own system — near-black surfaces, the red wordmark, and a Community tab on the title. Phone and TV share the same jobs with different input. A TV post-watch prompt uses the remote to hand off to the phone, so comments stay frictionless. Copy is quiet on purpose: Keep the story going. Spoilers stay hidden until you choose to see them. A post-watch prompt (What stayed with you?) starts the thread without turning the credits into a comments section.
Phone
TV
The product balances session length — capturing the high-intent moment after a title — with user psychology: a safe harbor, not a feed. MVP is private-by-default. Virality stays out.
Private threads with people you already watch with. Trust is the default. Public discussion exists beside it so people without a circle are not locked out — but it is never the first posture.
Must-watch lists so friends can be tastemakers for their circle. Testers called this a direct answer to choice paralysis: a rec from someone they trust, saved or played in one tap.
A context-aware composer after a title — “What stayed with you?” — designed first for TV, then handed to the phone so the remote never becomes a keyboard. The alternative to idle googling for a recap.
Episode and movie recaps at the moment people usually switch to YouTube. Testers wanted them badly — and needed precise triggers so a recap never spoils an episode they have not reached.
I ran remote usability sessions on the high-fidelity prototype across seven core task flows — posting a thought, private-circle posting, receiving a shared collection, and the rest of the loop. Completion was complete; the work was in how people felt while doing it.
task completion in usability testing
trust and safety perception
research through a tested prototype
The constraint that mattered most was not building a social network. Netflix already has attention. What it is missing is a trusted room after the story. Users were skeptical of anything that felt broadcastable, and eager once they understood private-by-default. Spoilers, circle privacy, and one-tap collections were the product. Virality was the thing to keep out.
Designing a social layer that still feels like Netflix — a living room after the credits, not a feed competing with the story.
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