NBC Peacock
Streaming Platform: Design Discovery
In 2019, I used Design Sprints to prototype and test early features for NBCs new streaming service, Peacock
The challenge: NBC was in the preliminary stages of a brand-new streaming service. They had a repository of unserved and untested Customer needs.
The objective: Ideate and test solutions for 4 key opportunity spaces; incorporate preliminary user feedback in to the broader design process.
The solution: A series of Design Sprints. Each Sprint ran for 2 weeks.
My role as lead UX designer was to explore concepts, promote ideation, and create testable prototypes for third-party focus group testing.
The result:
Valuable learnings gained from the design concepts. This allowed the core Product team to design and build key Peacock discovery & bingeing features with confidence.
The four opportunity spaces
Pre-playback discovery: How to get users quickly into content and begin watching
Bingeing: How to get users to stay on the platform and continue watching content
On-boarding and authentication: How to authenticate and get users on to the platform in the first place
Platform deltas: E.g. 2020 Olympics; how we could bring live events to the forefront
Design Sprint example #1:
Pre-playback discovery (start state UX)
Opportunity breakdown
How might we: …Get people to discover content, more quickly, without suffering ‘decision fatigue’?
Objective: Design the start state and test to understand people needs
Insight: An abundance of choice “I don’t know what to watch, I spend too much time looking!”
Output of ideation
Start Watching: Immediately start playing VOD content (instead of the user making a manual selection)
Live TV: Take the user to live/linear content
The Best of NBC: Start on a feature rail/carousel highlighting the best NBC content
Leaving/Arriving Soon <— not selected to prototype
Auto-Play Favorites <— not selected to prototype
Initial team white-boarding for this opportunity (Discovery)
The “Start Watching” prototype
The three selected ideas were turned into design prototypes using Principle. I was in charge of mocking up the “Start Watching” concept.
Each of the three concepts were put in front of a panel representing NBC’s customers: MVPDs (multichannel video programming distributor) and Cord Cutters.
Core learnings
Of the three concepts, Live TV was preferred amongst both MVPDs (multichannel video programming distributor) and Cord Cutters.
Live TV is seen as a differentiator by giving a feeling of connection to what’s happening “right now” (e.g. live show, news segment, sports event, etc.)
At its best, automatically playing content alleviates decision fatigue because it gets users straight into content.
Viewers expect autoplay behavior to be persistent while browsing (not switch between autoplay and not autoplay).
While viewers are looking to alleviate decision fatigue they still prefer to be in control of their viewing experience. Therefore they were very much against an auto full screen takeover.
The winning concept: “Live TV”
Design Sprint example #2:
Binging (end-of-playback UX)
Opportunity breakdown
How might we: Get users to stay on the platform by using exclusive NBC content?
Objective: Design a binging mechanism to test and understand people’s needs.
Insight: Users have choice paralysis: “Do I really need to choose which one, among all these options, will continue my “high”
Output of ideation
Autoplay Playlist: Display a playlist of clips to encourage binging (clips will autoplay)
Autoplay Show/Movie: The next recommended TV show begins to play automatically
Autoplay Personality Recommendation: Autoplay a top pick from a famous NBC figure (e.g. Jimmy Fallon) discussing the show or interviewing the cast
Initial team white-boarding for this opportunity (Binging)
The “Autoplay Playlist” prototype
The three ideas were turned into design prototypes using Principle. I was in charge of mocking up the “Autoplay Playlist” concept.
Each of the three concepts were put in front of a panel representing NBC’s customers
Core learnings
The Autoplay Playlist trailer concept was the dominant favorite in this testing – largely because the offering dovetailed almost perfectly with viewer needs in this context.
Emotionally, viewers are just moving out of an immersive, visceral experience and need a transition that does not feel forced or abrupt and allows them time to transition. Simultaneously, and practically, they need (and want) help accessing their next relevant content.
The alternative two options (Autoplay Show/Movie and Autoplay Personality Recommendation) were unable to provide this balance. For example, the NBC personality recommendation felt inauthentic and left viewers wondering what a “random celebrity’s take” has on what would be most relevant to them.
The winning concept: “Autoplay Playlist”
The result
Valuable learnings gained from the design concepts allowed the core Product team to design and build with confidence.
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