Spectrum News
Apple TV
Spectrum News Connected TV: tvOS
Context
Time
August - October, 2021
~8 weeks from Discovery → High Fidelity MVP product
Team
1 Product Owner
2 Product Designers
1 UX Researcher
1 Design Producer
My Role
Product Design Lead
When we got word this project was happening, we moved quickly. We hired a product designer and a UX researcher for this project. I worked with our product owner and technology lead to form a big, 30K foot-level big block schedule so we could work backwards on timeline. I also worked with our executive stakeholders to get an initial understanding of the business needs, wants, and desires.
After the team was established, I designed the discovery roadmap, starting with research and ending with a high-fidelity hand-off.
Today’s representation of the omni-channel offering for Spectrum News
Problem Space
The business needed to expand the omni-channel presence for Spectrum News customers beyond the website, native mobile app, and linear TV.
An underlying goal of the connected device program was to gain net-new customers beyond the Spectrum customer-base. This would allow Spectrum News to be available to other MVPDs (multichannel video programming distributor) customers.
KPI’s
Adoption, Engagement, Retention, Operational
Process
Discovery & Research_Process
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Demographic Market Analysis
57% of households across Spectrum’s footprint actively use a streaming media device (tvOS, Roku, etc.)
~30% of customers are streaming news
Competition is increasing with Fox Nation including primetime Fox News; CNN starting to be included in HBOMax
Initial Customer Segmentation
Spectrum Customer News Enthusiasts: Tend to be older with lower incomes. Win back cord cutters and help existing pay TV subs expand to mobile and streaming
Non-Spectrum Customer News Enthusiasts: Tend to be slightly younger with higher incomes. Pursue with higher ad load assuming strategic goals allow for non-customers to access Spectrum News if they access more ads
All News Novices: Tend to be slightly younger with moderate income. Prove value and expect event-driven viewing
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Findings:
Television, unlike other electronics, is a shared device and has different design considerations as well as customer expectation related to signing in
Viewers move through active and passive forms of news and weather consumption throughout their day
Allowing the customer to choose their preferred content rather than defaulting to live makes them feel in control, which they prefer.
Locales outside of one's immediate location are still relevant
Television is not the primary device for weather consumption in the device landscape
Search on TV is a high effort. Voice search was used to make it easier
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Goal:
Taking learnings from market research and interviews, we continued the generative research to dive deeper into news and weather viewing habits.
Feature prioritization including content customization, location swapping and podcast
Understand which topics are of most interest for news and weather
Investigate behavior and device preference as it relates to weather and news consumption
Findings:
Personalization is wanted and expected
Different features are important to different age groups
The top expectation for news across age groups was that content would be suggested based on previous viewing habits
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The competitive analysis was another opportunity to flesh out features, flows, and general interactions before we started sketching.
We evaluated core UX features across various tvOS applications such as navigation, live video treatment, profiles and personalization tactics, and onboarding.
The apps we checked out, based on respondents surveyed and interviewed, included:
ESPN, CNN, YouTube, Hulu, HBOMax, Bloomberg, Cheddar, CNBC
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“Active” News Watcher:
>5 hours per week of watch-time
“I turn on the news in the morning when I’m starting my day and in the evening when I’m winding down. It’s important I know what’s going on in my community that day.”
“I want to catch the latest stories for water-cooler talk so I typically watch the news every day.”
“I stay on top of the weather for each day. The weather is the news.”
“Passive” News Watcher:
<5 hours per week of watch-time
“I have the news on as I’m getting ready in the morning, making my coffee, lightly listening to the top stories and the weather forecast.”
“The broadcasters keep me company, so I have the news on when I get home from a long day.”
Wires_Process
August, 2021
When the initial research phase was completed, we started sketching individually, and then as a group. The wireframe prototype served two main jobs:
To communicate the MVP feature-set and happy path user journey; Audience: Technology, Product, Business
To gain stakeholder approval on approach; Audience: Spectrum Networks executive team
To test the proposed taxonomy of the “content chips”; Audience: Users of the experience
Visual Design_Process
UI Sprint: After the MVP user flow had been approved by leadership, the next phase of the design process was visual design. This client has historically focused heavily on visual design. The pressure was on to create high-fidelity concepts within a few weeks time.
Spectrum has a large video design team, so we tapped a few product designers who primarily only work on video products for a one-week UI sprint. The design system for tvOS had been built out for the company’s leading video product, but the UI treatment for the Spectrum News experience would likely deviate from the global system. A UI sprint was our only option.
I partnered with my peer on the video design team to carve out time for five designers to have heads down time to ideate, explore, collaborate, and dive deep into the visual design.
The result was a suite of options that we ended up breaking down to create the final visual treatment.
Pressed by leadership to explore "lighter UI" treatments for this app, this designer pushed lighter tones. Unfortunately, the color was far too bright when on a 60" screen.
This blue hue is a core color in the Spectrum design system, so using it to bleed into the overall experience. Leadership ultimately decided it was too playful for a news experience.
Contextualizing time of day (morning time) using this color gradient of orange and yellow.
A dynamic color treatment for weather, borrowing from the mobile app color gradients that change throughout the day
This designer was a member of the larger AppleTV team. She experimented with card types and color.
A more mature look and feel compared to the others. This designer used color and type stack to communicate a more "news-like" feel.
tvOS 15, user flow
Engineering Validation_Process
The development team was brought into the design discovery process frequently and often, but when we had received final approval from the stakeholders of features and the core “happy path,” the dev involvement was more formalized.
Due to timeline, our development team needed high-fidelity, fully approved designs for each sprint — both “happy path” and “sad path” (as we nicknamed it). We leaned on the native tvOS patterns, as well as our design system, for the error screens, etc. when it came to the non-traditional “sad path.”
Final Testing_Process
In February, 2022 the team completed in-person usability testing with news enthusiasts and news novices. Because the final build was not yet ready, this prototype was created to allow users to navigate the experience with an AppleTV remote.
Our findings validated many of the pain points and opportunity areas identified in the generative research:
Localization and location sharing: Users understood and wanted local-only content; They were comfortable sharing their zip code in onboarding, as they understood the localization provided
Homepage layout: With live video upon entry, was a familiar and expected experience
Content Chips: We know search is cumbersome on TV; Users gravitated towards the content chips on the homepage to search news specific to a topic, ex: Health or Education
Live News Entry: Users equally went to the Live tab in the navigation, and the “Watch Live” CTA
Weather: Participants said daily and weekly forecasts should be elevated
Weather Location: Participants would add multiple locations in weather to “keep an eye on a loved one in another state” or “while planning for a vacation”
JTBD Users: “Active” news watchers would be the main users of this experience; “Passive” news watchers said they wanted more national news
