Research
UX Design
UI Design
Interaction Design
Introduction
In collaboration with the technical team at Flipside Group, I led design for an incremental application update, tackling multiple product pain points with technical and design led solutions.
Team
Vix Read - Senior Project Manager
Robbie Blackburn - Accnt Manager
Jemma - GCTV Digital Team
Jorge - GCTV Digital Team
What I Did
User Interviews
User Testing
Experience design
UI Design
Interaction Design
Prototyping
Results
I produced technical design work and oversaw their implementations for multiple feature amends within an incremental application update.
Background
GCTV requires a user subscription for full access, and is distributed between Television, Web, iOS, and Android based applications.
The original platform design omitted a strong sense of brand, but a neglected user experience.
To discover the core issues, we spoke to the users
Summary
User Interviews
We interviewed GCTV users in order to understand where they found stumbling blocks. This also helped in validating assumptions we had already made.
Survey Feedback Scores
We send out user surveys to existing GCTV users, using it as an opportunity to gather qualitative and quantitative data to help identify and synthesise problems.
Solution Brainstorming
Utilising all of the information gathered from the steps above, and working with the project team ideating solutions. The outcome being a low fidelity prototypes, and a user journey map projection.
Understanding
One of the most discussed faux-pas in the feedback collated surrounded the lack of options for when users wish to change or lose their sign in information. In the currently IA, the earliest opportunity to gather this information was beyond the actual sign in / sign up wall.
GCTV articulated an internal gripe surrounding the messaging and general flow of the sign-in/up pages requiring streamlining.
Understanding
Over 70% of users indicated that they didn't feel inspired into upgrading their account. It was mostly commented on as an issue with value proposition, but recognised that GCTV weren't positioning upgrading in an inspiring way or showcasing many of the valuable features prior to clicking 'see more'.
Understanding
During some of the actions users were asked to conduct, we noticed a high level of disengagement and confusion.
Understanding
During a large event with multiple racers, we learnt that users were presented with the main race track front and centre of the event page, feeling like they had to go down a rabbit hole to watch other events starting at the same time.
Understanding
GCTV articulated a pressing issue with some of their most valued sponsors due to the fact that they felt the quality and contextualisation of ads in where they were delivered and how they related to their location didn't bring as much value as it potentially could.
Understanding
Users frequently mentioned that the in-viewing experience didn't deliver enough in terms of being able to skip forward or backwards, offer subtitles, display the time frames well, or offer the user the ability to adjust the view quality.
Problem
With a large body of media, GCTV required a large technical overhaul within their stack to springboard the in-app experience to their level of other top streaming applications.
Problem
Onboarding delivered plenty of early stage takeaways well, but didn't offer enough value in user assistance.
Problem
Key user acquisition points fell short in inspiring subscription and upgrades.
How might we
How might we
How might we
How might we
Flipside used google drive to brief and share materials throughout.
Synthesis
We worked with the team at GCTV in establishing a priority list to execute tasks in an order that makes sense from a profitability perspective, to the general streamlining of the user experience.
Upon establishing this we were able to anticipate a projected ROI. Based on the final outcome of the ROI, some of the suggested updates were pushed a little further down the roadmap and others red flagged as business critical tickets that required immediate action.
Improved Login/Password Recovery
The delivery of a rejuvinated signin/up process with the inclusion of valuable information delivery, and a rexploration of the functionality behind how users can recover and reset their information.
Contextual Smart Search
The delivery of a dramatically enhanced search module that would focus on vastly improving categorisation, and implement smart search functionality that would allow user results to up-date in real time as they type every letter.
Multiple Concurrent Live Streams
The delivery of brand new events pages that would allow for multiple concurrent streams to be view, streamlining how users can view different races within large events.
Improved Advertising
The delivery of in-app stories and contextual advertising to invite further commercial partnerships with GCTV.
Synthesis
We went through a couple of rounds of presenting and amends to finalise a refined solution that could go into design and development. Once GCTV signed this off, it was go time.
We ran through a round of moderated user testing to further understand the effectiveness of our high fidelity iterations for each feature update, presenting users with a script to follow and execute. Users then provided a feedback score and written feedback for each journey to give the team valuable qualitative data.
Solution
Sign-up had been considered a lengthy process by users, focussing on delivering a lot of the onboarding information prior to users being able to enter their details.
We found out that users are more likely to complete the sign-up process successfully should they not run into barriers prior to entering their details, and opted to shift the momentum in presenting the sign-up screen before they run through any further information.
Large technical feature updates included design work that embraced geolocation and autocomplete functionality, of which all modern devices are being engineered to utilise.
One of the most specific asks from GCTV was to deliver an interface across all devices that improved on GCTV's updated brand messaging.
Solution
With the majority of GCTV users being solely reliant on downloading the application for device convenience, one of the early priorities was to ensure that should first time users now currently subscribe, that the purchase model was simplified and front and centre if you are a first time user or if you're in possession of an account without subscription.
Previously, users were redirected to a browser once they had opted into subscription which was found to be a significant hinderance.
Solution
With search being at the forefront of how users discover important information, GCTV had specifically requested that we commence in a incremental stagger of works on delivering a much improved search module.
We introduced filtering and sorting across all devices, where prior to application users were only able presented with a search input box without any opportunity to refine and contextualise their search terms.
Within the incremental works, we watered down results cards temporarily to (in search only) not contain imagery. This was due to the fact that results often looked extremely inconsistent with the imagery that GCTV had been using in both framing, quality, and context. Whilst GCTV were working on refining all imagery and their database, we created an icon based model that would sit in place temporarily.
As a part of the search card refinement, we optimised card sizing from a two column result model to a single stack, focussing on delivery a better quality of description inclusive of the content category and the pay wall the content sits within.
Solution
A huge pain point in the GCTV user experience was the distribution of of race media within large events. Often within these large events there are multiple concurrent races happening at the same time (on different tracks), and users frequently voiced the difficulty in accessing the different races due to the depth in which they were nested within event pages.
We introduced an event page that focussed on immediately showcasing all live media at once as soon as the user lands, as well as delivering a vastly improved timetable and results panel.
Solution
With applications like TikTok and Instagram showcasing the success of in-app stories, we saw an opportunity to work with some of GCTV's most prestigious sponsors in delivering promotional stories across all devices and platforms to offer a new revenue stream in how advertisement was approached.
Stories were proposed to be short, ad based media that would showcase events and products. When a story is viewed, the device will initiate the full-screen media player.
Solution
The existing GCTV media player delivered very little in terms of information and user control, showing a simple play, pause, stop , and fast forward/rewind control. Whilst this is an acceptable standard, all GCTV media data offered a lot more in terms of meta data and with media player standards having risen in recent history, we recognised an opportunity to deliver users a far more accessible experience.
Placing additional features such as program information, subtitles, screen size, and comment viewing into account, we were able to offer the user a greater in-app experience contextually as well as vastly improving accessibility without device reliance.
Lesson
Regular testing an research into media streaming platforms should be conducted often to maintain technical innovation remains up to standards.
Being a native app, the technical capabilities are continuously changing based on the operating system the app is build for.
Running on multiple systems, GCTV felt a little left behind operationally due to the enhancements on the select devices. With that being said, it felt like investment in regular application updates in lieu with device innovation would benefit the business if focussed on more regularly.