Reimagined the video-watching experience and reshape the relationship between viewers and content creators
Company
Intelling Media
Timeline
July 2023 - September 2023
CONTEXT
Reimagined the video-watching experience
and reshaped the relationship between viewers and content creators
In the summer of 2023, I worked as a UX Design Intern at Intelling Media, contributing to the development of InCast, an innovative media platform that reimagines the video-watching experience and fosters deeper engagement between viewers and content creators. InCast aims to reshape the media landscape by transforming passive content consumption into a truly participatory experience, bridging the gap between fragmented audience interactions and meaningful engagement.
Main Challenges
Designing for InCast was challenging due to its highly innovative approach and lack of industry precedents. Balancing engagement with usability required rethinking comment display and interaction to foster meaningful participation without overwhelming users. The platform also needed to be both groundbreaking and scalable to appeal to investors.
My Role
As the UX designer on this project, I played a key role in defining and designing InCast’s core features, crafting an intuitive user flow, and designing the platform’s interface to enhance video engagement.
Project Impact
By delivering a fully interactive high-fidelity prototype, my work helped Intelling Media secure critical investment and refine InCast’s vision. The design solutions provided a clear framework for user interaction, enhancing audience engagement while ensuring the platform’s scalability and market viability. Additionally, my contributions during the summer internship laid the foundation for future UX designers to develop the platform’s full UX system based on my prototype.
UNDERSTANDING
The Users
Video Viewers & Content Creators
As the two main users of a video platform, video viewers and content creators form an interdependent ecosystem that keeps the platform thriving. Viewers engage with content through reactions and comments, while creators rely on audience interaction to build their community and refine their content. Their conversation is the core of the platform experience, shaping engagement and connection.
(Additionally) Investors
During the summer of 2023, InCast is in its early MVP stage and actively seeking investment. To attract investors, it must demonstrate the potential of its innovation and how it will transform the future user experience on its video platform. Clear storytelling, structured engagement data, and a compelling vision are essential to showcasing its value and scalability.
Before I Joined
Existing MVP
Before I joined the team, the MVP was developed for mobile, with an existing design file outlining the initial interface. The team had begun exploring alternative ways to present the timeline and had an early concept for visualizing comment density directly on the timeline.
Swift Focus
From Mobile to Desktop Version
The Tasks
Storytelling & Visualization
After conducting user testing and understanding what investors prioritize, I defined the scope of the design project. Given the tight two-month timeline, I focused on storytelling and visualization, emphasizing key features that best showcase InCast’s potential. Instead of designing the entire system, I prioritized elements that would be most impactful and easily demonstrable in investor meetings.
PROJECT GOAL AND SCOPES
Enhances viewer-viewer and viewer-creator engagement through storytelling and investor-ready visualization.
PROJECT TASK 1
Redesign homepage recommendation logic and labeling for more transparency and variety in content discovery
Problem
Homepage recommendation systems on many platforms often feel cluttered and unclear. Users couldn’t easily tell whether content was shown because it was trending, personalized, or promoted. This lack of transparency can lead to distrust in the system, confusion, and even disengagement.
InCast’s MVP attempted to address this by categorizing recommendations, but the labels were vague and repetitive, leading to further confusion. Additionally, a content catalog block was placed awkwardly in the middle of the homepage, disrupting the natural scrolling flow and making the browsing experience feel disjointed and fragmented.
Approach 1
Structured Content Grouping
for Layered Discovery
To address the lack of structure on the homepage, I redesigned the layout into clear horizontal content groups (shelves), each representing a different layer of engagement—from personal interactions to broader discovery. This structure helps users easily distinguish between ongoing conversations, personalized recommendations, their own contributions, and trending content.
Your Active Conversation
“Your Active Conversation” surfaces comment threads or discussions the user has participated in, creating a sense of continuity and encouraging deeper engagement beyond the moment of viewing. By reconnecting users with conversations they’ve contributed to—even after leaving the video—it helps build ongoing dialogue, strengthens both creator-viewer and viewer-viewer relationships, and turns passive viewing into active participation.
Invite and Recommendation
“Invite and Recommendation” is a personalized content stream that introduces new videos based on the user’s interests, social activity, and connections. By adding clear labels (see Approach 2) that explain why each video is recommended, this section enhances transparency, and encourages exploration through both personal and social relevance.
Your Contributed Content
“Your Contributed Content” clearly surfaces the user’s previously uploaded videos, highlighting any items that require attention—such as unreleased drafts or new important comments. This section keeps creators informed and engaged with their content's ongoing impact.
Approach 2
Label System:
Bringing Clarity to Recommendations
To address the lack of transparency in current recommendation systems, I introduced a labeling system that clearly indicates the source of each recommendation, using a set of broad, recognizable categories. The goal is to reveal intent without clutter—keeping discovery smooth, relevant, and user-driven.
Approach 3
Reorganized Layout with
Flexible Banner and Cleaner Flow
To reduce visual clutter and improve content flow, I restructured the homepage layout, moving the content catalog from the center to the side panel. This preserves the natural top-to-bottom browsing rhythm and creates a cleaner, more focused discovery experience without interruption. At the top of the homepage, I designed a flexible featured banner. In the early stage, it encourages uploads with a direct CTA (Your input matters). In future use, it can promote events or showcase featured content, or be hidden for a cleaner layout.
OUTPUT
Fully interactable demo in Figma
To reduce visual clutter and improve content flow, I restructured the homepage layout, moving the content catalog from the center to the side panel. This preserves the natural top-to-bottom browsing rhythm and creates a cleaner, more focused discovery experience without interruption. At the top of the homepage, I designed a flexible featured banner. In the early stage, it encourages uploads with a direct CTA (Your input matters). In future use, it can promote events or showcase featured content, or be hidden for a cleaner layout.
Project Task 2
Merging Comment Interaction with the Watching Experience to Deepen Engagement
Problem
On most platforms today (like YouTube or Twitch), comment systems are either overwhelming or disconnected from the content. Real-time comments flood the interface, and when users jump through video timelines, the comments shown are often out of sync. Low-effort comments (e.g., emojis, spam, repetition) make it hard to find value. There is little context, quality control, or personalization, leading to distraction rather than engagement.
Approach 1
Bringing Comments into Fullscreen with Progressive Display
On most platforms, comments disappear in fullscreen mode, cutting off a key form of interaction and limiting engagement. To address this, I brought comments into fullscreen in a non-intrusive, progressive way.
By default, the interface remains clean to support immersive viewing. When the user moves their mouse, a subtle, low-opacity comment stream fades in—allowing users to re-engage with the conversation only when they’re ready. This layered interaction preserves focus while making space for meaningful engagement without visual overload.
Approach 2
AI-Powered Comment Prioritization
and Visual Hierarchy
To improve the comment reading experience and reduce visual noise, I introduced a visual hierarchy where comments appear in different sizes based on their perceived value and relevance. Higher-impact comments are displayed more prominently, while lower-effort or spammy ones appear smaller and less intrusive—helping guide viewer attention without overwhelming the interface.
To keep the comment section clean and non-distracting, each comment shows only the username and content by default. When a user hovers over a comment, interaction tools—such as upvote, downvote, and reply—fade in. This progressive interaction design ensures the interface remains focused on content, while still supporting meaningful participation when the viewer is ready to engage.
Approach 3
Moment-Based Comment Synchronization
To improve the quality of engagement, we introduced an AI engine that evaluates and prioritizes comments based on their relevance, clarity, and interaction value. Comments deemed more meaningful appear larger and more visually prominent, while low-effort input—such as emoji-only or spammy posts—is minimized or visually de-emphasized.
This layered presentation helps guide viewer attention to valuable discussions, while subtly encouraging users to contribute higher-quality comments of their own.
PROJECT TASK 3
Redesign Comment Density Timeline
to Be More Engaging and Intuitive
The original timeline was placed at the bottom of the video due to mobile screen size limitations. However, this placement conflicted with the transcription, which also appeared at the bottom, and took up too much space, disrupting the viewing experience. After shifting to the desktop version, we had more screen real estate to work with, allowing us to relocate the timeline to the side for better clarity and usability. I also adjusted the opacity of timeline elements, making them more transparent to ensure a more immersive and unobtrusive viewing experience.
Progressive timeline interaction
I redesigned the timeline interaction to be progressive, revealing information step by step to maintain clarity and support immersive viewing.
When the viewer moves their mouse, a dynamic histogram appears, showing comment density across different moments. As the interaction deepens—hovering closer to the right—the full segmented timeline with thumbnails fades in, enabling viewers to explore key scenes with visual context.
By breaking down interactions into layers, the timeline transforms complex behavior into an intuitive experience, presenting rich information in a clear, structured hierarchy.
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OUTPUT
Video Demo
showcasing the video-watching experience
The InCast video demo was produced in 2025, a year after my internship in 2023, when the team invited me back to design and present new features. While the case study documents my original 2023 design work, this demo reflects the product’s updated direction—and was fully created by me in Figma to showcase the new user experience.
Thank you for viewing my work :)
I'm Leona Lei. Let's connect!
