Android TV
DAZN wanted to create it’s first true native Android TV experience, part of this project also involved creating the new standard for all TV experience in the eco system
My role: Lead UX.UI · Android TV
Problem space
Currently all content associated with documentaries, series and films were difficult to find for the user, they were mixed with the live events catalogue. This meant when you had finished watching one episode from your favourite series it wasn’t easy to find the next episode or find out more information about the show.
FocusHow are users using the existing app
What problems are they facing with the existing app
What features are users missing compared to other platforms
How can we create a scale-able design for TV that can be used for all TV platforms
Research & insights
On this project research was used to support an iterative design process but also as an investigation piece to understand how existing users were interacting with the legacy app to help highlight any pain points and needs.
Testing was conducted in dedicated lab sessions where we set up a fake living room experience and invited users to sessions.
Accessing the navigation
We found that users were having difficult accessing the main navigation as it was positioned as the first item which meant a user could potentially have to scroll through 20+ rows of content depending how far down the catalogue they were. As a result we saw users came up with their own way of navigating and used quick links that where scattered throughout the catalogue.
App content structure
The apps structure had no limit, this meant a user could end up 10+ pages deep into the tree structure of the app without realising backing it difficult to understand where in the catalogue you are and returning back to the home screen.
Playback issues
The existing playback controls were very simple and did not provide any feedback for the user, we saw users were struggling to seek to a specific moment as they couldn’t see where they would end up unless they pressed play,
Design decisions
The design process was iterative and collaborative between UX, engineering & product. We created a squad and worked closely with open communication throughout.
Navigation menu
I introduced a left hand navigation to the app, the navigation came in a slim inactive state so it didn’t take up too much space on the screen, but when a user interacted with it, it would expand to help the user find the right content.
Being on the left rather than the top meant it was easily accessible without scrolling through 10+ rows of content.
App structure
The biggest change was removing repetitive links that were dotted throughout the catalogue, this ensured the user could go 3 levels deep into the app structure making it easy to return back to the home screen.
In addition to support the user understanding where they were in the app the navigation would only show when they were in the top 2 levels of the app structure, on level 3 if the page didn’t exist in the navigation it would be hidden.
Playback controls
To better help users seek the right position I added preview thumbnails whilst seeking back and forth, this enabled users to quickly find the right time stamp rather then the repetitive existing process of pressing play and hoping it was correct
Scalable playback
Ensuring the playback experience was scalable was key, knowing we had more interactive features on the roadmap I took the decision to ensure the foundations of the player allowed for expansion.
To achieve this I created dedicated zones for controls based on it’s theme, this was divided into player controls in one zone and interactive elements such as watch party in another. This meant when we released a new interactive feature we had room for adding entry points without the need to re configure the playback controls.
Working with engineering
On this project we created a close squad between Design & Engineering teams, constant communication through daily stand-ups and demo sessions meant engineers weren’t reliant on waiting for final designs. This approach allowed us to gather feedback early and focus on delivery key design specs based on the delivery plan.
Release 1
The first release of the core app involved releasing to a small market, we tracked key metrics such as playback time to ensure users were able to find and watch content
Release 2
Once we had confidence this was later rolled out globally and we began to release incremental updates.
Outcome
This project created the foundations for all non live sporting content, the modular destination page helped users to find content with ease and further recommendations for similar types of content
+34%
Playback time YoY
+46%
Time spent on app
-58%
Time to content