Let’s face it- live streams are fun, but when it comes to live stream chat, things can get a little complex with high traffic and huge files.
Whether you’re hosting a virtual concert, a webinar, or a Q&A session, a smooth chat experience can make or break the event. No one wants to miss out on a comment because of a glitchy live-streaming chat feature, right?
In this blog, we’ll break down 7 essential UX practices to keep your live video stream chat flowing like a pro. From keeping things clean and user-friendly to ensuring your audience feels heard and seen, we’ve got you covered.
7 UX Best Practices for Live Stream Chat
Live streams often have high traffic and need large file transfers. While this creates a great user experience upfront, managing the backend programs gets difficult.
Here are 7 essential UX practices you can implement to manage live stream chats better.
1. Overlays
Comments on a live-streaming chat, either off-screen or over the video itself, are known as overlays. We see two common types in a live stream API: the off-screen comment feature and the overlaid chat design that appears over the video.
Off-screen chat is hard to access on smaller-screen phones, so overlay live video stream chat is the best option. On larger-screen phones, sidebar chats can be inconvenient because they make you shift your focus.
Whatever the choice for your live streaming API, here are some basic criteria for your overlays:
- The live stream chat should be easily accessible, scannable, and readable.
- Texts overlaid on videos should have high contrast.
- The ‘Submit Message’ sections should be visible.
- It should state the type of messages supported by the live stream API.
2. Dynamic Reactions and Threads
When we mention a live stream chat, it’s not just texts anymore. Users like sending GIFs, emojis, and other media options. Chat threads now help keep the main chat organized and free from clutter.
But won’t so many extras in a chat make it messy? To avoid the mess, you must make the threads, GIFs, and other media sizes appropriate for your live stream API. That’s how live streaming API providers allow large file uploads in chat without causing any issues.
Before you start with a live-streaming SDK,
- Use familiar UX patterns for new features like highlighting comments or emoji support in-app to keep it user-friendly.
- From the start, develop designs with future scalability in mind.
3. Adapt and Adjust
A small group of participants might suddenly grow to hundreds after an influencer endorsement. When that happens, typing indicators become unnecessary. Because “A is typing..” looks cool and boosts a sense of community. But a “hundred people typing..” might take away the fun.
You can also disable emojis, GIFs, and other multimedia options to adapt to the increased load. In high-traffic situations, it’s best to display messages as soon as they’re sent. This method, called Optimistic UI, ensures smoother interaction, and you can always implement a video hosting API later.
To make your API for live streaming more flexible,
- Design an adaptable video streaming API for growth.
- Live streaming chat is based on immediacy, so it should allow quick reactions without disruptions.
4. Moderation and Slow Mode
Some people might use abusive language and profanity on a live video stream chat. Usually, a video live-streaming API will let the hosts manage such cases. They can block certain phrases, people, and comments.
Also, the AI moderation and karma system uses machine language and flags disruptive comments and accounts. You can use ‘Slow Mode’ when you see the live video streaming API is cluttered due to media load. Enabling a slow mode in such instances is known as ‘throttling’. You can also limit the message timing, and the chat will move slowly.
5. Paid Plans and Highlighted Messages
Users who get excited about chatting on streaming APIs might feel offended by the ‘Slow Mode’ discussed above. So, you can also enable a “Play to Pay” feature that allows users to pay to pin their comments at the top of a live stream chat.
YouTube offers a feature where users can pay $5 per week to post, pin, and highlight comments. YouTube Live allows users to save history from the live stream chat and they can rewatch the video as they like. To implement such paid plans in your live stream API:
- Add a user-managed upgrade feature to avoid losing conversations.
- Reward users for active participation by giving them immediate responses or feedback.
6. Virtualized Lists and Solid Infrastructure
A live-streaming chat with thousands of users can have a messy interface. A virtualized list is like a tiny version of it and displays only a portion of the messages at a time. It helps refresh the stream easily, particularly on a slow internet connection or a slow device.
This needs a strong backend setup, often using Raft, Go, and RocksDB to create a fast and stable streaming video chat SDK & API.
When developing an effective virtualized list,
- Use proven language systems to build solid infrastructures and dynamic API for video streaming.
- Plan your live stream chat by compounding it year on year.
- Decide fixed heights for the message UI.
7. Optimistic UI and Offline Storage
Live stream works by creating a feedback loop for the viewers. This strictly needs great offline storage and Optimistic UI. Let’s say you’ve reacted to a comment with a thumbs up. Initially what you see is a facade, and the backend doesn’t have it yet.
It shows up as a placeholder for the media you use on a live stream API, which gets replaced by the real media later. When building Optimistic UI and offline storage,
- Build streaming APIs that can adapt to all connectivity situations.
- Create UI libraries that can back up your conversation and keep it lively.
Wrapping Up
As live stream chats continue to be a key part of virtual experiences, they come with their own set of challenges. With those challenges come plenty of opportunities too. Following these UX practices can make your live stream experience a breeze.
Remember, simply adding a live chat and hoping for the best won’t cut it. You need thoughtful design, user-friendly features, and moderation tools to keep everything in check.
