Improving browsing efficiency through user-curated search
Project overview
The client wanted to push forward an old concept around a feature called help me decide. The purpose of this features was to allow users a secondary browse experience that would help them find something to watch more efficiently. It had been in exploration stages before, but had been on hold due to not being in scope.
Research
To start, we wanted to analyse the past concept and research findings to find out what users initially thought about the features. It was well received, but with lots of areas to improve and questions to be answered.
I and another mod weight designer began to gather fresh research, looking at competitor experience that offered the same solution. We expanded our research into other industries, not just streaming.
We presented this research and got a good idea of the types of experiences the client liked. We summaries the common features or function each experience had, and started to shape some initial ideas.
Exploration
We explored a lot of routes, trying to narrow it down to around 3 concepts that could show to the client to get further feedback. The goal was to present to the client every week, making user the features stayed at the top of their minds.
Narrowing down
We picked out some features we like me from competitor experiences like a gamified experience, a compound statement structure and something more interactive and created so lo-fi designs for each. It was clear that the client were keen on a coupons statement structure - it was simple, but effective and allowed us to showcase our breadth of categories.
Home sweet home
Home needed to feel like a one-stop-shop for your favourite things. Live content from you favourite channel, your last watched content, suggestions and highlights should all be ready available.
With TV products, your constrained by d-pad navigation which means lots of up and down actions to find what you want. Having a dynamic rail allows for less manual user behaviour to get to what you need.
We made sure it was easy to know where your content was coming from. Adding a app icon to content card allowed for non-disruptive design while also calling out content source.
Highlighting apps and their content was paramount in giving users a truly integrated experience. We did this by having app-specifc rails with jump off points and top content, as well as designing a TV guide with FAST channels, allowing you to really see the breadth of content available.
Apps
TV Guide
With the inclusion of FAST channels, the design if the TV guide had to be easy and efficient, displaying on information that the user needs at a glance, and allowing for more information to display in an expanded view, on delay.
We wanted to show a complete experience, with ways to keep user in the app and watching more. One way to do this is with end screens whoch can be used to show whats up next.
We went a step further and created a full screen immersive experience using artwork. Not only does this highlight what was up next on the current channel, but what was up next on other channels too.
How can we keep users engaged?
Highlighting Live TV further, exit screens were utilised to highlight upcoming popular content. If a user was about to exit, we would surface upcoming content from one of there ,most favourite channels. This not only shows the user that we ‘know’ them, but also keeps them engaged with the service.
Future Vision
We started to think towards the future of Live TV - how ca we enhance the experience to be more engaging and utilise the ‘in the moment’ feeling of watching something as it happens.
Shows like Love Island feature items related to the show like water bottle that make the user feel like they are immersed in the experience. What if we could highlight those items as they appear live. Using interactive ads, we can highlight points of purchase within the live show.
A shoppable experience
Using the mechanic of profiles, users would be able to see what their friends and famil are watching on a dedicated rail on Home.
What’s everyone watching?
Final pitch
On our final pitch the client gave us great feedback around some of the feature we introduced. They said it felt seamless and built for the future. It was great being able to conceptualise without having too many constraints around functionality or brand and was a very different experience to working on larger, more established projects.