Next generation YouView

Principles

• More intelligent
• More visual
• More intuitive
• More scalable
• More relevant

Objectives

• More viewing
• Positive user feedback
• Scaleable
• Futureproof
• Competetive

Concept development and key user journeys

We created concepts that demonstrated some key aspects of the user experience. These were based on some preliminary user research, competitor analysis and also an understanding of how people were using the existing product.

User research

At the beginning of the project we conducted a lot of exploratory research and used some existing personas to help focus our design efforts. As the project progressed we needed to start creating more realistic prototypes that reflected real content. Afterall with a product like YouView, the content is the main focus.

As part of our research toolkit, I set-up a system where the research moderator could see a visualisation of the remote control key presses.

Prototypes

We created prototypes throughout the project for user research and also as ‘living’ documentation.

This is an example of a protoype I created in Framer for a user journey focused on finding programme information and other episodes. It was also used to help convert some of our motion design into code.

Main Menu

The redesign transformed the Main Menu from a series of links into a shop window for content. It allows users to browse the latest content without disruping their TV viewing, which was crucial.

Early on in the project we identified that users want to browse while still keeing one eye on their current viewing and the Main Menu is the cornerstone of this philosophy.

Our data shows that not only does the Main Menu help users get to their favourite content quicker, it has also been successful at promoting lesser known content.

Programme information (Action Panel and Brand/Series Area)

When users want to find out more about a programme they can access a series of screens that present them with information and actions. In addition, if the programme is part of a series they can navigate through the series and episodes.

In the old design the ordering of episodes was often unclear and caused confusion. Our research has shown that users find ordering of episodes in the redesign to be much clearer and therefore they find it easier to navigate.

MyTV

MyTV is the place where users can save their favourite content, either by recording live TV or by adding On Demand shows to their Watch List.

The redesign managed to create a more visual view, while also fitting more content onto the screen (the previous list view only showed 9 items per screen). While the redesign has split opinion amoung the user base, it has resulted in some unexpected feedback. Diary studies showed that children found the screen much easier to use because of the imagery and similarly we have had feedback from users with accessbility needs who also found the redesigned view easier to use.