Twitch Soft launch

Last week I did a soft launch of my Twitch stream reboot. I've been sitting on designs in Figma for a month or two now, and while they were mostly complete, I found myself stuck and slowing as I made small, insignificant tweaks. As a designer, I should have known better than to keep my work close to the chest, rather than testing it with my audience, but the perfectionist in me prevailed.

Thankfully, with the encouragement of my friends, designers and gamers alike, I was finally able to push the button and go live. With their help, I have been able to iterate on my overlays, which have received a lot of positive feedback. That validation was exactly what I needed to push me to continue to test and iterate my designs. The work looks good, but nothing will help it improve like testing it in the appropriate context.

The first night I played a little bit of Hades and Dead By Daylight. Though I was only live for a short while, this test stream quickly revealed some quirks with my overlays and workflow that I couldn't see until they were already implemented in OBS. There were gaps in the UI, and I found I didn't actually like for the chats to disappear. On the hardware side, I learned that my streams were entirely too loud. It's kind of subjective, but even with the guidance from the audience, I would lower it even more. I would have never learned that had I not gone live.

The second stream I played a little of Paper Mario: The Origami King. This broadcast game me even more insights about how to improve. I discovered I can use the transform feature in OBS to match the designs in Figma, pixel for pixel. This was a huge help as it was much easier to correct the gaps in the UI from the last stream. It was heartwarming to see friends from different times of my life come to the stream with warmth, affection, and enthusiasm. Though I was exhausted, it gave me a lot of energy.

Streaming is turning out to be really fun for a lot of the same reasons I got into web design in the first place. Like design, it's a multidisciplinary endeavor involving a wide range of overlapping skillsets. Being able to bond with friends new and old while I learn and make use of existing skills, has been a joy. When I first joined Twitch in 2014, it was little more than an experiment, but it is so much more than that. As I've grown to become more confident and outgoing, Twitch feels more like an opportunity to meet new friends, as well as a new way to grow as a creative individual. I look forward to growing as a streamer in the year to come. I hope you'll join me!