The Hole App Design Engages Users on a Whole New Level
The sovereignty of your conventional television is long overdue and it’s finally time to admit: The end is nigh!
On the other hand, TV’s much younger online-powered cousins, various streaming platforms and apps have become increasingly popular in recent years, with new companies and brands popping up every now and then, offering a variety of different specialized services.
They offer the best of both worlds — instant gratification and video content that we actually choose to get lost in.
The newest kid on the block is ready to ascend the throne: a video streaming platform built on Flutter!
The Hole app design, courtesy of industry veterans Surf, is a full package!
With a wide variety of content, it transcends the format we are used to, i.e., YouTube and/or similar platforms. How?
Beyond collating 36 shows (previously scattered all over YouTube), infusing it with a superb UX, adding dynamic resolution change, video pre-caching and streaming to TV support, Surf introduced a slew of interactive trivia shows and a series where the audience makes a genuine impact on its storyline. Talk about engaging!
The Hole App Uses Google’s Flutter Software to Elevate User Experience and Introduce Seamless UI
Since smooth screen transitions, responsiveness and UI animations were deemed as crucial elements of quality user experience, Surf decided to build the app on Flutter, which in turn enabled the client to be economical with the initial budget (compare to the native app development process).
Flutter, a cross-platform technology not only offers seamless UI but provides an opportunity to do wonders with the video player itself. By ironing out occasional bugs, improved playback features, customized buffering and several other hindrances, Surf brought the app to the world in less than four months, achieving the client-set high standards for UX with flying colors.
Beyond excellent UI/UX, the deciding factor for any streaming platform is its hosting capabilities. The closer content is to its consumer, the faster a product works. Web servers and CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) are hosted in the client’s country of origin, providing the maximum response rate.
According to Surf’s calculations, the servers can process several thousand requests per second in order to cope with the expected load. To ensure the platform maintains the set quality of experience, the agency carried out load testing and measured how the performance of microservices deteriorated under load, identifying and eliminating potential bottlenecks even before the project was launched.
Trendy Minimal Design and On-Brand Color Scheme Balances the Sheer Volume of The Hole Video Streaming App Capabilities
“In the beginning, there was a word.” Or rather an idea. Starting the project, the app didn’t have a name or branding, so Surf focused on a general design concept.
Once the denomination “The Hole” was introduced, playing into the Nietzche's famous sentiment (“If you stare into the abyss (hole), the abyss stares back at you") the Surf referenced the name and the relationship between users and the platform itself (catering to their interests by continuously offering new, custom-tailored content) with engaging animation.
Before building up the brand’s distinctive user experience, Surf examined the UX of existing video players. They sifted through the best user practices, common patterns and quality standards and optimized every single one.
The ability to provide a smooth viewing experience even when the internet connection is shaky is a huge bonus!
Overall, The Hole app design can be described as simple and to-the-point. It doesn’t take precedence over functionalities but focuses on living up to users’ expectations and habits.
That doesn’t mean the app is not beautiful in its own way. Quite the opposite, actually. The on-brand color palette and minimal elements guide viewers' eyes to key points intuitively, seemingly without even trying to.
The Hole Introduces an Easy-to-Navigate Video Player and a Slew of Interactive Features
Surf was particularly focused on the player’s seamless functionality. Relying on Flutter, the player supports extremely high download speed and response rate. With its speedy and convenient custom UI, users can easily jump back and forth.
Surf added a 30-seconds “skip forward” and a 10-seconds “rewind” buttons. The reason behind this particular timing is that users usually skip forward when they’re bored and skip back to look and/or listen again at something that they just missed.
Videos tagged as new or “premiere” are now preceded by pre-rolls, i.e., short ads. When the mobile streaming app is first installed, users are shown an intro, which is an image-building video incorporating highlights from several shows on the app. They can skip it, watch it again or enter the app once it’s over. Needless to say, this intro amassed its own fans: not only do they, well “skip the skipping” but they watch it over and over again.
Additionally, viewers can now send reactions to specific parts of the videos they enjoyed the most, choosing from a set of custom reactions. All they need to do is simply tap the icon at the side of the screen and the app will show the four most popular emojis. This relatively small and dynamic interaction is a great way of collecting user feedback.
The Hole App Design Marks the Triumph of User-Oriented Streaming Platforms
Where once we had Netflix, nowadays we have dozens of platforms competing on the streaming market, exponentially elevating the content quality. Similarly, YouTube is also facing contenders that are gradually shaking its throne, The Hole being one of the shining examples.
The company behind the app, Medium Quality, offers anything but (the best). Creators of top-rated digital projects and masterful video content offer more than 40 shows on a remarkable platform designed to cater to the collective audience’s every whim. And they are yet to grow. Deservingly so.
