User Acquisition
In my role as the lead designer for the Twitch Identity team, I concentrated on crafting seamless experiences for users as they navigated account creation, login processes, and identity management across the platform.
Segmented sign-up flow
Research data showed that the vast majority of Twitch viewers were “lurkers” who watched content without creating an account and logging in. Users are unable to participate in Chat without logging in, and therefore are unlikely to find a sense of community.
Finding community in one or more channels is what makes a “hardcore” user who is willing to spend money to support the creator. Our team’s charter was to find ways to incentivize users to create an account and login.
One of our first experiments was to break the sign-up flow into three screens rather than one long form. The hypothesis was that users would feel less intimidated by shorter looking forms and would be more likely to finish signing up.
The results were positive: there was a 1.5% increase in users who successfully completed the sign-up flow.
Segmented Sign-up FlowLogin Wall
We conducted an experiment with 1% of logged-out users to evaluate their response to a "login wall," which required them to create an account and log in before accessing Twitch content.
Participants in the experiment were split evenly between those arriving from the Homepage and those from the Channel Page.
The outcome was clear: the majority of users chose not to create an account and log in, resulting in them opting not to watch Twitch. Although the results were not favorable for user retention, the experiment was successful in providing valuable insights into user behavior.
Twitch Homepage Covered by Login WallAccount Recovery
In parallel with the "login wall" experiment, we focused on addressing an issue that had been long overdue for improvement: the account recovery flow.
We recognized that the existing process was not only error-prone but also counter-intuitive for users. Furthermore, after completing comprehensive accessibility training with Fable, I discovered that the flow was nearly impossible to navigate using a screen reader due to live error responses that changed dynamically as the user typed.
To tackle these issues, I simplified the account recovery process for both web and mobile platforms. I also modified the error checking to occur upon form submission rather than in real-time.
These changes significantly enhanced usability, allowing users to recover their accounts more easily, which in turn led to an increase in successful logins.
Unfortunately, this was the last experiment our team was able to run as the team was eliminated as part of a company-wide reorganization.
Account Recovery Flow on Web and Mobile Apps