Shifting power towards smaller creators in a new audio-based platform
You’ve finally reached partner status on Twitch — you’ve streamed six hours per day, six times a week, for the past year and you’re now ready to expand your brand to unforeseen heights. After several hundred hours of live streaming, you’ve amassed a few dedicated followers and your hard work is now paying off….in cents.
Current models of monetization for content creators is finnicky to say the least. As user experience designers, we must challenge how accessible product features are, especially when we market features to be beneficial for the everyday user. These models boast the fanatical possibilities of income and revenue by doing the things creatives love, but at the fair price of meeting metrics that are difficult to triage and often require the organizational skills of a project manager. Through the conceptualization of an app preemptively called “Banter”, my co-creator and I wanted to solve the issues of getting monetized and actually making money that matters.
Banter was designed through careful competitor and target audience research. Being that the application is an audio only-based platform, we theorized that the platform would be content-heavy and content-centric without additional creator roadblocks such as physical appearance, livestream setting, waiting screens and more. However, we did not want to lose the intense-level of engagement that other video content-creating apps such as Youtube or Tiktok have. We decided to conduct research that would provide us some insights to start designing and ideating our concept.
Fans of the internet and the like, Banter’s for you.
Based on our findings, I questioned whether or not our intended audience — users of the internet and fans of content creation, would be ready to switch to a new platform and would be ready to create audio-based content. We did have data that supported that audio content is an area that many users were not very familiar with — but that didn’t mean that the users weren’t capable of learning or were completely closed-minded to the idea. I decided to develop an initial app design that focused on a simple user interface that was familiar, encouraged content creation, and made listening a comfortable experience.
Our designs had to focus on the needs of two personas: the Creator and the Listener
Given this first persona, we tapped into the idea that our creator base would be familiar with content creation but may have never “made it big” in other platforms or in their current fields. Perhaps she was unable to monetize her content and/or was never able to get to a “partner”-type status. We wanted to make monetization simpler and to make the means to get monetized easier than other platforms currently advertise.
Our second persona focuses on the listener and the ideals of an individual who enjoys content but maybe prefers to remain an audience member due to their hectic and everchanging lifestyle. This persona provided that our listeners needed easy ways to get to viewing content while also having an innovative way to support and engage with their favorite creators.
Prototype and Interfaces
Banter’s homepage is designed look familiar to your favorite audio and video streaming platforms. Currently in the listener view, listening audiences can inspect live, audio broadcasts that are of interest. An information hover box provides more information, if the listener needs more to bite onto, but other than that, the interface is designed to get from one from the homepage to content immediately.
If one wanted to create an audio broadcast, a creator would toggle the button to switch to a creator interface where content is swapped out for publishing tools, creator insights, and past recordings.
Insights with Banter are special due to their nature being more than just analytics based on the results of a creator’s live broadcast. Banter can provide helpful insights and recommendations based on what other types of content one’s listeners also listen to. These helpful recommendations make content creation easier and less work for smaller creators to ideate or develop alongside their other responsibilities outside of the platform. These simple interfaces for both the listener and creator would serve as, hopefully, a helpful aid in engaging with one another.
Tip Your Creators!
Monetization is what provides small creators with the motivation to create, and unlike other platforms that use the “carrot hung on a stick” method to lure content creation with little-to-no-reward, we developed a simple model at Banter that allows a creator to generate revenue during their first live broadcast.
The tip your creator module is set up by the creator in the form of three different emojis with each having a set value of tip that a listener can click to send directly to the content user. There is no minimum requirement of followers or listeners for a creator to have to start utilizing the tip system and creators can monitor how much money they have accumulated while they are live. Because of this simple system, we can support smaller creators by rewarding their hard work starting on their first day as opposed to having unpaid creators aiming high but never being rewarded after years of live streamed content.
Next Steps and Realizations
We realize that this early concept needs more iterations to develop an even more UI friendly experience for our creators and listeners. More research, testing, and design iterations must be completed in order for Banter to truly be in support of its users. Additionally, a model needs to be developed to see if Banter would benefit from taking a portion of tipping proceeds or if there would be additional ways for the platform to gain revenue in order for this idea to be a scalable, community platform. Though Banter is a concept, it is my belief that progressive approaches to content creation need to be grounded in supporting all creators as opposed to major influencers, or businesses. By removing creator roadblocks and providing more easily accessible incentives for content creation, designers can be at the forefront to challenge historical and dated ways of approaching creativity in a platform.
