Sling TV was in the early stages of its redesign of its console, web, and mobile experiences with a focus on the console first (most limited). They contracted me to do some iterative testing to validate navigation ideas.
Once we discussed their business objectives and questions for research we expanded the scope.
Overall their business objectives and concerns of low-viewing, high sign-up/drop-off with no viewing, and seasonal subscribing became a bigger driver of research needs. I was able to convince the team to step back from testing the redesign of navigation (implementation of contemporary interaction design patterns), to consider the holistic customer experience.
ROLE
Contract Lead Researcher and Strategist working collaboratively with Product Managers and the Director in defining requirements for the User Experience Designers.
THE CHALLENGE
Explore and validate the early navigation strategies while strengthening the team's understanding of their customers and their mental models around watching Live TV and On Demand movies, sports/live events, episodic content, and general pain points of streaming services to inform a holistic redesign of the customer experience which ultimately revealed a new to improve processes and engagement with content providers and how sales contracts with networks are structured.
CONSIDERATIONS
A significant challenge to the navigation strategy was the sales contracts with major networks where networks specified navigation requirements that conflicted with consumer mental models and needs. Of course, there was no room but we consciously decided to give feedback to the Sales organization on how their practices were impacting the consumer experiences and what - if any, impact it had on viewership.
Also, a challenge is the customer experience is reliant on data from multiple sources without anyone having a holistic view of the data or experience. The implications of this were not understood by the different teams within Sling TV.
Inevitably every organization has politics. Not everyone in product management and UX wanted my engagement.
There were different teams within Sling TV doing different analysis (different disciplines) and communicating different visions of the customers - not wrong, but not complete. The silo'd work of the teams were preventing them from working effectively and cohesively - even when they could not collaborate.
Although Sling TV is a part of Direct TV they operate fast and furious like a start-up. Collaboration was sometimes challenging. Research and testing were also new to the product management and design teams. The designers came from a fine art and visual design background so the usability of the findings was essential with a need to empower teams to take action.
THE APPROACH
Overall, I look to work collaboratively with stakeholders and teams to not only harness their expertise continuously through the process while fostering their sense of ownership and buy-in to the solution.
I also gave executive briefs on a biweekly basis to ensure alignment and support.
My definition of success is always - At this then at the end of the project when someone asks a question about customers - the findings or strategy, someone besides me answers the question with confidence and accuracy. That is always my goal. And it happened here.
Stakeholder Interviews and Attending Routine Meetings
I met with product managers, the VP, and the Director as well as the UX team to gain insights into their experience and expertise as well as internal processes and challenges.
Many of the questions Product Management could be answered by design principles and usability heuristics. I observed the discussion around customer experience issues and the lack of progress towards business objectives did not include the UX team or even leadership where they could offer their insights into what the issues are and how to solve them. I recommended more collaboration and inclusion between product management and UX. This is an example where internal processes are impacting the Customer Experience.
From these interviews and observations I was able to outline many research questions. I was able to workshop with product and UX leadership to review, refine, and prioritize an agreed upon list of research questions and mapping their concerns and business objectives to them.
Building upon the team's existing knowledge of their customer experiences such as binge-watching, background noise viewing, social watching, etc., I designed studies to ensure an understanding of the breadth of motivations and mental model themes as well as the salience and needs of themes. I also explored the influence of internal (including sales) and vendor processes and requirements to influence each other and ultimately the customer experience. I also considered internal dynamics and challenges to conducting this work.
In-Home Study
I was asked to assume responsibility for an In-Home Study that Marketing had started but was struggling to continue due to resources and priorities. I refined the existing script to focus on observations in addition to attitudes.
In-home studies were conducted to gain a holistic understanding of the customer experience including the context of their Sling TV experience - Accessing Sling TV and its competitors using different devices such as Play Station, Amazon Fire Stick, XBox 360, Roku, etc. with Cross-Channel considerations of Desktop and Mobile. Visits were arranged by Sling TV product management and product managers participated in the interviews and observations. This activity revealed the emotional inheritance foundation from the various platforms and devices Sling TV customers have when engaging with Sling TV. It also revealed additional considerations into the phases and themes of watching entertainment.
The analysis included a warroom, where I worked with product managers to create and cluster observations (sticky notes) to identify themes, opportunities, and issues/considerations. Here we discussed and debated findings.
Card Sorting
One of the redesign questions and a challenge revealed in the home study was how people navigate or select content. Its here where the emotive experience was revealed with many objective mental models and subjective user needs. It also revealed the importance of watching entertainment for families and other intimate relationships.
Sling TV had an established category of content from content providers however the In-Home study revealed different customer mental models than the industry. I designed this activity to explore this finding and give us qualitative and quantitative insights which I anticipated would be important to discussing these findings in a meaningful way. I conducted 15 moderated open and closed sorts in-person with index cards (offline), and used Optimal Sort to conduct 45 online, unmoderated studies to complete 60 for quantitative findings.
The team was also adding a new Sports section to address the issue of customers and sports fans do not know that Sling TV is the go-to provider for certain sports - and they have low viewing threatening their contracts. Initial qualitative interviews with sports fans revealed themes of watching different types of sports with different priorities. Again, the emotive and relationship influence was also revealed. Another consideration was the offering of various features and content from vendors to consider. To explore these more I designed an unmoderated open card sort and an online survey to explore the breadth of themes and their saliency with both qualitative and quantitative findings.
CX Strategy
In the initial findings, we expanded the understanding by adding emotional and social drivers with many subcategories to the established main categories to reveal additional customer needs and opportunities for new features in addition to informing navigation and interaction design patterns.
An important consideration in navigating content and finding what is satisfying is the collaboration and communication between watchers who enjoy watching and/or discussing content together - simultaneously or "together separately" using additional devices.
I began the CX strategy with an Experience Blueprint to help communicate the holistic experience, the influence and use of many more devices than the platform, and the emotional engagement and social interactions of entertainment experiences. This is how I engaged the multi-discipline teams across Sling TV to share their findings and considerations that contribute to a holistic understanding of the customer experience and customers. This helped the various teams to understand each other. The blueprints was also a way to capture and communicate detailed needs within the experience for different teams engaged at different points as well as communicating externally with sales and vendors.
Iterative A/B Testing Console Experience
I designed a study of iterative A/B Testing to explore and vet the redesign direction including navigation and initial design patterns for Live and OnDemand, omni-channel experience, and console experiences. One approach came from the UX team who insisted on working independently. And one came from my collaboration with product management.
I introduced a task-based testing approach to the team where I would ask participants questions about their entertainment preferences and experiences, and then give them a task to complete using a console prototype. This prototype included essential features and interaction design patterns to support specific depths of identified tasks.
The testing plan included identifying the needed feedback to understand and facilitate understanding consumer mental models as well as what usability metrics (quantitative data) were needed to establish the breadth and salience of themes (qualitative data), and also facilitate understanding throughout Sling TV.
Specified prototype needs to support all tasks and expected interactions to gather identified usability metrics.
Presented results to executives and leadership to lay the groundwork for product management and designer's redesign work. Card sorting and cluster analysis was used to identify statistically relevant relationships. The presentation of results was anchored in business objectives for the redesign as well as internal concerns.
THE RESULTS
The results revealed that families and friends are still connecting to one another through live TV and On-Demand movies, episodic content, and sports with with distinct emotional goals and experiences driven by different emotional needs at different times. Even when they are in different geographic locations. Not a surprise was that the content was organized by type of content but needed to be consumed from a task-based model. The first-time experience needed to better align to first-time product use heuristics and a distinct direction to facilitate customers meeting their emotional needs, trust, and a sense of success was also outlined. A strategy for addressing consumer disappointment and frustration (and heavy calls to customer service) of content not available through Sling TV was also outlined.
This is an early draft (incomplete for NDA purposes) where the different dependencies and contributions of various teams were integrated, and when and how consumers experienced them. I also used this to document the user experience and their interactions with devices (multiple remotes for TV and Streaming Devices (Roku, Firestick, etc.), customer support, family and friends, as well as the Backstage elements.This helped the silo'd teams to understand how they are working together to support a customer's experience.
ARTIFACTS
Final Report - UX Strategy
After drafting the original report - research findings, and a review with the Director of Product Management, we agreed since research is new to the teams that a full UX Strategy would ensure that everyone was empowered to take action and work cohesively across the organization. The original report was created in collaboration with product management - and to the extent possible, the designers. The original report contained findings with user needs but the team still wasn't sure how to work with it so the deliverable became a UX Strategy with specific navigation schemas along with a strategy, a specific sports landing page, and specific interaction design patterns with personas and context of use.
The report was structured by Persona to communicate the variation in findings, Questions for Research (business), and UX Principles.
Personas
Personas were created from insights from contextual inquiries, card sorts, and interviews to communicate the variations in findings and empower everyone to work with a unified vision of the consumer experiences while working fast and furious. Personas included design implications to outline user needs to ensure both product managers and designers had actionable insights and reduce different interpretations.
Experience Blue Prints
When I realized that various teams had different understandings of consumers from working with different perspectives of the consumer experience that they supported, I introduced Blue Prints to bring people's understanding together and give them a tool to unify their vision
Recommended Wall of Customer Experience
Suggested that the product team establish a customer experience wall where everyone could post what they are working to facilitate a unified vision of the consumer experience, and "show" everyone what the consumer was experiencing - direct mail pieces, screenshots of TV ads, microsite promotions, emails, and pages of each platform experience - Console, Web, and Mobile.
Personas with Design Implications were created. Due to the amount of data photos were not used. Gender was not included since gender was not revealed to be a driver of behavior and consumer needs were not different between gender identities.
Revealed the different challenges, viewing preferences, emotional needs, social needs, and different broadcast patterns to empower teams to develop a new sports landing page that would support consumer needs and mental models while addressing some common frustrations while avoiding new ones.
Expanded the team's understanding of basic tasks to reveal distinct behaviors - and additional task and emotional needs that revealed new feature opportunities while informing interaction design.
Used conceptual wireframes to illustrate how identified needs can be met through different content and navigation patterns.