Live product · 2025 · ~1,000 weekly users
Twitch Mini Window
A Chrome extension for watching Twitch in a small window: live channels, multi-stream, clips, VODs, schedules and emotes. Around 1,000 people use it every week.
- Role
- Design & Development
- Year
- 2025
- Stack
- Chrome Extension, JavaScript
Twitch, in a window the size of a phone
Around 1,000 people use this extension every week. It started from my own habit: I wanted a stream open while I worked, without giving it a whole tab. So I designed and built a Twitch companion that lives one click from the toolbar, with live channels, multi-stream, clips, VODs, schedules and emotes.
The design problem is size. A popup gives you about 460 by 600 pixels, and people open it for a few seconds at a time. Every screen has to answer one question fast: who is live, what did I miss, or when is the next stream.
How it should feel
Quiet and quick. It should feel like a remote control, not a second website: you open it, see who is live, and get back to what you were doing.
Dark, compact, and instantly familiar to anyone who knows Twitch. Purple appears only where something is active or actionable (a pinned channel, the selected range, the primary button), so the rest can stay calm.
Up close
A stream on any page
The floating mini player is the reason the extension exists. It sits above whatever page you are on, small enough not to cover the text you are reading, with a single Close control and a drag handle in the corner. I kept the chrome to a title and one button so the video gets almost all of the pixels, and the page underneath stays readable and scrollable.
Four streams, controlled one by one
Multi-stream is for tournaments and co-streams. Every tile has its own “set active” and “mute” controls, because with four sources only one should have sound and the choice must be obvious. The header carries the layout’s name, “Unmute all” and “Save workspace”, so a good setup is something you keep, not something you rebuild every Friday.
Channels, favourites and a side panel
A channel page splits into short tabs (Overview, Clips, VODs, Schedule, Emotes, Mini) so each one answers a single question. Emotes are a grid where every emote has its own small copy and download actions. Favourites keep streamers, clips, VODs and saved workspaces in one place, and the side panel keeps a stream and chat open next to the page. Channels and streamers shown here are fictional demo data.
Looking back
Small tools earn their place by being there exactly when you need them. Designing for such a small window taught me more about priority than any full-screen layout: if something is not the first thing you need, it moves one tab away.