SharePlay Interactive
An ambient streaming rewards platform, on web and mobile.
Visit site (opens in a new tab)
10,000+ users
00 — Overview
A real-time, ambient streaming experience that brings creators and audiences together through synchronized playback, lightweight interaction, and community-driven rewards.
- ROLE
- Product Design · UX Strategy · Interaction Design
- TIMELINE
- ~8 Months · Beta Shipped
- PLATFORM
- Consumer Web · Mobile Web · Native Mobile App (Testing)
- TEAM
- 1 Product Manager · 2 Engineers · 1 Product Designer (Me)
01 — The problem
Streaming is social in culture but isolated in product.
People already watch together: on calls, in group chats, in Discord channels with a stream running in another tab. The behaviour is social, but the tools aren't. Watching happens in one app, talking in another, and supporting a creator in a third.
For creators the split is worse. Their audience, their earnings and their analytics live in separate places, so it's hard to see what's working and harder to reward the fans who show up.
SharePlay set out to put those behaviours in one place, so watching, reacting and supporting a creator feel like one experience rather than three tools stitched together.
- Latency sensitivitySynchronized playback needed to feel immediate and consistent across viewers.
- Adoption frictionComplex setup could discourage spontaneous participation.
- Signal vs. noiseInteractions needed to create connection without distracting from the content.
- Platform constraintsThe experience had to work within the limitations of existing streaming infrastructure.
02 — Research & discovery
1. Competitive landscape
I looked at where people already stream and gather, and what each platform optimises for:
- Twitch and Kick: built around the broadcaster. Chat-heavy, high energy, and overwhelming for casual viewers.
- YouTube Live: huge reach, but live and community features feel secondary to video on demand.
- Discord: where communities actually hang out, but watching together is a workaround, not a product.
2. Defining the experience
From that, I set four design goals:
- Instant to start. Going live had to take seconds: Go live → choose camera setup → stream.
- Presence over noise. Quick reactions and lightweight interaction instead of a chat wall competing with the content.
- Rewards that feel like play. PlayCoins, Play+, the Marketplace and leaderboards turn support into participation, not a checkout.
- One console for creators. PlayStudio brings earnings, PlayCoins, followers, engagement and stream performance into one place.
3. Team and collaboration
I worked as the product designer alongside a product manager and two engineers, from early concepts to the beta. Real-time streaming put engineering constraints at the centre of design decisions: what felt instant had to actually be instant, so latency and setup cost shaped the flows as much as the visuals did.
4. Design decisions and iteration
- Home sections are previews. Each section on Home shows a taste, and an arrow opens the full page. That keeps Home fast to scan without hiding depth.
- Stay in the product. Wherever possible, actions happen natively in the app instead of sending people out to another site.
- One accent, used with intent. SharePlay yellow marks every active and hover state, so the interface always shows where you are and what you can do.
- Sheets without clutter. Mobile sheets close with a gesture or an action, not an extra X icon competing for attention.
Design opportunity
SharePlay didn't need another broadcasting tool. It needed one place where watching, reacting and supporting creators feel connected, light enough to join on impulse and rewarding enough to come back.
Twitch · Kick
YouTube Live
Discord
03 — Experience design
Removing setup friction.
The goal was to make going live feel immediate, reducing the steps between deciding to stream and sharing an experience with an audience.
I designed a streamlined flow:
- 01Go live
- 02Choose camera setup
- 03Stream
By minimizing setup complexity and unnecessary onboarding, the experience encouraged spontaneous use and helped creators get into the action faster.
04 — Interaction model
Lightweight engagement.
The interaction model prioritized presence and quick reactions over chat-heavy interfaces that could compete with the content.
I focused on lightweight engagement patterns that let viewers acknowledge moments, participate in the experience, and feel connected without overwhelming the stream.
The principle was simple: interaction should make watching together feel more social, not more complicated.
05 — Creator dashboard
One console for the creator experience.
PlayStudio gives creators a centralized place to monitor their channels and understand how their communities are engaging.
The dashboard brings key information together, including earnings, PlayCoins, followers, audience engagement, and stream performance.
The goal was to reduce the need to jump between disconnected tools and make essential creator information accessible while managing a channel.
06 — Economy
Support that feels like play.
SharePlay extends beyond streaming by giving audiences ways to participate in the creator economy through PlayCoins, Play+, and the Marketplace.
I helped shape an experience where creator support and audience rewards feel connected to participation rather than treated as separate transactions.
Clear pricing and a straightforward Stripe checkout support the purchase flow, while the broader rewards experience gives viewers additional reasons to return and engage.
07 — Outcome
Built, shipped, and adopted.
SharePlay is live in beta at shareplay.tv (opens in a new tab), with 10,000+ users across desktop and mobile web. The platform includes synchronized streaming experiences, creator tools in PlayStudio, and a native mobile app in testing.
The project validated the need for a more social, interactive streaming experience and established a foundation for expanding creator engagement, community features, and rewards.
Designing for real-time experiences means balancing technical performance with perceived simplicity. Making it easy to go live and join an experience was central to creating a product people could use spontaneously.