A new live streaming feature for Channel 4’s digital service
Role
UX Lead, New Viewing Opportunities
Responsibilities
Product Discovery, UX Design, Design Principles, Accessible design
The challenge
Our brief was to investigate the desirability and value of being able to host live streams on Channel 4’s digital streaming service. This would allow users to watch live content, such as sports, that wouldn’t otherwise fit into a typical TV schedule. For Channel 4 this represented an opportunity to unlock new sources of streaming revenue.
I worked with a team of two designers within a cross-functional squad to lead the Product Discovery and UX Design for this new capability. I was responsible for design exploration and cross-platform UX, overall direction, scoping of the initial release, alignment with business goals and supporting delivery.
The team started with a broad focus, looking at existing research into watching live, asking questions about the intended audience(s) and defining the high level experience we wanted to create.
We identified three primary goals for a typical user:
As a sports fan, I want to
connect with others,
be in the moment,
and watch anywhere,
So that I can get the most out of watching live
A series of UX workshops helped the team generate initial ideas
Design approach
We divided the experience into three key moments:
Pre-event. Raising awareness, promoting the event on and off platform
During the event. Clear labelling so it’s easy to find. Smooth playback
Post-event. Clear indication that the stream is finished. Encourage follow up actions
Each live stream was to be made up of three main components: a homepage promotion, an event page (to hold the stream), and a player. Each of these components had to respond to each of the key moments, dynamically adjusting based on the status of the live stream.
We came up with a hierarchy of information and explored ideas using rough wireframes
Wireframing layouts, potential features and metadata helped us think about a hierarchy of information and allowed the squad to have meaningful discussion on what we might build for a first release.
We considered how the framework might scale, and explored how different events might be grouped into ‘typologies’ based on their complexity
A map of how our first release UX would be supported behind the scenes helped to break down silos and align the cross-departmental effort.
Mobile devices were shown to be particularly important for users watching in the moment. We designed prominent promotional components on the homepage so that viewers coming to the app for a one-off live stream could find it easily and quickly.