Apple TV, Roku, Google TV, iOS, iPadOS, Android
Transforming AXS TV's Digital Presence: A UX-Driven Streaming App Suite
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At a Glance
Product suite of streaming apps for AXS TV’s premiere programming, concerts, and legacy series. This cross-platform app suite spans across mobile, tablet, and TV streaming devices.
My Role: User research, conceptualization, design, usability testing
Duration: 3 months
Background & Problem
AXS TV faced a critical business challenge: retaining and expanding its audience in the era of users abandoning traditional cable TV in favor of streaming services. With over two decades of exclusive content locked behind traditional cable TV, the network needed a strategic pivot to streaming to meet evolving user expectations during the pandemic.
We also had a very short timeframe to get feedback on designs, gather feedback, and iterate on designs. We partnered with a third-party engineering team on a limited contract basis and had to work quickly to meet our targeted go to market launch window.
Research
My research approach focused on end user polls conducted via social media and my preexisting first hand knowledge of AXS TV’s user base. This gave us deep insight into their likes, their dislikes, and most importantly, their pain points when it comes to consuming media on various device types.
User Needs:
Quick access to content they want to watch or continue where they left off
A free service with little to no ad breaks
Consistent new content uploaded to keep things fresh
Pain Points:
Users don’t want to be forced log in to watch content like Netflix, Hulu, etc.
Seeing the same repetitive ads can lead to abandoning the app
Inconsistent experiences on different devices leads to user confusion
Stakeholder Considerations:
While the apps can be free to download, they must have ads to generate revenue
Sponsored content may need to be prioritized over more popular content
The content needs to attract new customer demographics to the brand ecosystem
Strategy
Leveraging this research, along with my own knowledge of countless hours of streaming content myself, the programming and digital content teams brainstormed a feature list and user flows needed for a successful streaming app. After brainstorming and journey mapping, we landed on a targeted set of features and flows to pitch to senior leadership. After that, I met with 3rd party developers to go over feasibility before moving to high fidelity mockups to test with.
The testing phase was very rapid and possibly the most difficult part of the project given the new reality of covid lockdown and everyone working from home. In person interviews were all of the sudden out of the question and I had to adapt to remote-based user interviews and testing user flows.
Design
We modeled the design based on simple streaming app heuristic principles as far as a home page with large, attractive imagery for the various series and concerts AXS TV had in their library. Quick access to search, browse categories, and even log in to create a watchlist are front and center. Series pages had clear information as to how many seasons and episodes are available to stream.
One innovation as a result of research was the option to skip logging in to view content. To meet stakeholder requirements, the first thing a user sees when opening the app is the login page. But we specifically don’t hide the skip button, it is simply a secondary button on the page. This provides only a small amount of friction for users but with one click of the skip button, they’re able to see any and all content to stream. No gotchas or paywalls needed.
We feature on various pages that in order to save content to a watchlist, users are required to create an account. This proved to be a valuable and intuitive way to get more sign ups for the platform. Our related content feature showcased similar series and concerts to users to enhance discoverability.
Outcome
The final product launched in summer of 2020 as a cohesive ad-supported streaming service with support a unified experience across responsive web (desktop and mobile), native mobile and tablet (Android, iOS, iPadOS), and smart tv (Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire). Users can create watchlists, resume where they left off of series, and stream exclusive content not available on any other streaming platforms. We implemented a centralized CMS for real-time updates that could push new content or changes across all platforms simultaneously. As a result of iteration and testing different series hero imagery and content sections, we saw a 40% increase in discoverability.
Key Takeaways
\We faced many challenges such as dealing with the start of covid lockdown during development and working with 3rd party developers. But we overcame them through strategic planning sessions, milestone timelines, and most importantly keeping the app small and lean. If we had more time, I would have liked to do in-person testing with prototypes on an actual TV to better mirror the streaming experience. We were able to overcome these hurdles and even ship the product ahead of schedule.