Optimizing Digital Product Design: How KidEx Enhanced Video Uploads for Seamless User Experiences

In today’s fast-paced digital world, user experience (UX) isn’t just a fancy term—it’s a game-changer. People expect apps to work perfectly every time. At KidEx, we know this well. We encountered a major issue: frequent time-out errors during video uploads on our app. These weren’t just small glitches; they were real barriers to providing the smooth experience our users deserve. So, we made it our mission not just to fix this issue but to transform the entire video upload process.

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The Challenge: Understanding the Root Cause

Our users often faced time-out errors while uploading videos, usually 2-minute clips that were 200 MB to 500 MB in size. These errors weren’t one-offs—they kept happening, especially to users in areas with slow internet.

In major Indian cities such as Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Pune, the average download speed across mobile networks, including service providers like Airtel, Jio, and Idea, ranges from 5.8 to 7.6 Mbps. However, the impact of 5G is still limited due to coverage constraints. Moreover, a critical observation is that internet infrastructure is generally optimized for downloading rather than uploading. On average, upload speeds are about one-tenth of download speeds, which poses a significant challenge for applications requiring large uploads, especially in areas still reliant on slower networks like 2G and 3G.

Given these factors, we recognized the need to develop a solution capable of performing reliably across all network types, ensuring a consistent and smooth user experience regardless of the technology in use. We focused our efforts on analyzing and optimizing the video compression and uploading stages, with the goal of creating a robust, data-driven solution that would eliminate these time-out errors and enhance overall user satisfaction.

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Our Approach: A Deep Dive into Compression and Upload Times

We started by carefully examining the time taken for compression and upload across different app versions. This meant simulating various scenarios, including different network speeds, device types, and video qualities. We found that compression was taking up a big chunk of the total time. This insight was crucial—it pointed us towards focusing on optimizing compression as our main target for improvement.

We identified several key factors affecting both compression and upload times:

a.?????? Device Performance: We noticed that different mobile devices had a significant impact on speed. High-end devices naturally performed better, but we needed a solution that worked well across all devices.

b.????? Network Conditions: The difference between mobile network speeds and Wi-Fi was huge. Uploads on Wi-Fi were faster and more stable, while mobile networks, especially in low-bandwidth areas, struggled.

c.?????? File Size and Video Quality: Larger files and higher video resolutions understandably increased processing times. However, reducing file size too much could lower video quality—a trade-off we wanted to avoid.

d.????? Library Efficiency: We compared the MP4Parser and FFMPEG libraries. MP4Parser was lightweight and ideal for mobile use, while FFMPEG offered more features but was bulkier.

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The Solution: Crafting an Adaptive Compression Framework

Armed with these insights, we developed a smart compression framework that could adjust to the different conditions our users faced. This solution involved creating practical rules that categorized and responded to various network types, video qualities, file sizes, and device capabilities. We chose to use the MP4Parser library, which allowed us to strike a balance between compression efficiency and app performance without making the app too large—a critical factor for mobile users.

But we didn’t stop there. We realized that optimizing compression alone wouldn’t fully solve the time-out issue. So, we extended the time-out duration to help users with poor network conditions complete their uploads without frustration. This extension was carefully designed to ensure users could finish uploads smoothly, even in challenging circumstances.

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The Result: A Dramatically Enhanced User Experience

The combination of our dynamic compression strategy and extended time-out duration led to outstanding results. User feedback was overwhelmingly positive—time-out errors dropped significantly, and the overall upload process became more reliable and user-friendly. To further improve the experience, we added in-app messages that guided users based on their current network and file conditions.

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Conclusion: Continuous Learning and Innovation

At KidEx, this experience taught us the value of a comprehensive, data-driven approach to solving problems in digital product design. By truly understanding the unique environments our users are in and using adaptable tools, we didn’t just fix a problem—we enhanced the entire user journey. We’re committed to pushing the boundaries of innovation, constantly learning, and applying these lessons to ensure our platform delivers the best possible experience for every user, every time.

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If you’re facing similar challenges with your product and would like to understand our solution in more detail, I am happy to help. Feel free to connect!