Viaplay - Re-imagining television (2014)
Viaplay - Re-imagining television (2014)
Combining the best of two worlds - Viaplay set out to explore the future och live television in the new streaming era - going from bold concept to product launch guided by insights and iterations.
Combining the best of two worlds - Viaplay set out to explore the future och live television in the new streaming era - going from bold concept to product launch guided by insights and iterations.
Combining the best of two worlds - Viaplay set out to explore the future och live television in the new streaming era - going from bold concept to product launch guided by insights and iterations.
Overview
In 2014 the future of streaming was starting to be defined, with products like Netflix and SVT Play leading the way. Viaplay was uniquely positioned to combine strong on-demand content with live television channels into a new type of product experience.
My role
As Head of Design, together with Georg Bachrach (UX Lead), Per Lindén (Visual Lead) and Monika Hansson (Project Manager), I partnered closely with Smart Design to understand and explore the future experience of streamed entertainment. I acted as stakeholder in regards to business aspects and brand considerations, participated in all ideation workshops and helped scope the first concept into a viable first product release.
The challenge
While on-demand content had opened up a world of choice, when we did research on early adopters of “cable cutters” in the US we saw that it also comes with a lot of challenges, one of the biggest one being the paralysis of choice, Many talked about how they missed the old days of campfire TV shows, gathering together to watch the talked about show together.
We also could see that the choice of what to watch was a complex process, that needed inspiration, finetuning and interactivity to feel helpful.
My role
As Head of Design, together with Georg Bachrach (UX Lead), Per Lindén (Visual Lead) and Monika Hansson (Project Manager), I partnered closely with Smart Design to understand and explore the future experience of streamed entertainment. I acted as stakeholder in regards to business aspects and brand considerations, participated in all ideation workshops and helped scope the first concept into a viable first product release.
The challenge
While on-demand content had opened up a world of choice, when we did research on early adopters of “cable cutters” in the US we saw that it also comes with a lot of challenges, one of the biggest one being the paralysis of choice, Many talked about how they missed the old days of campfire TV shows, gathering together to watch the talked about show together.
We also could see that the choice of what to watch was a complex process, that needed inspiration, finetuning and interactivity to feel helpful.
The user journey mapped out was a crucial artefact for both user understanding, internal alignment and ideation.
Interaction document visualising the mental model and examplifying with scenarios
The approach
The idea was early on to try and combine the experiences of on-demand and live broadcasting into one, powerful product - but the question was how to make it into an equally inspiring, easy to understand and highly interactive experience, pushing the boundaries of established mental models while utilising the familiarity of established patterns from the world of television and remote controls.
Ideation was followed by conceptual sketching of mental models, interaction patterns and visual examples. To understand the usability, feasibility and viability of the approach a Proof of Concept Prototype was designed and built.
The approach
The idea was early on to try and combine the experiences of on-demand and live broadcasting into one, powerful product - but the question was how to make it into an equally inspiring, easy to understand and highly interactive experience, pushing the boundaries of established mental models while utilising the familiarity of established patterns from the world of television and remote controls.
Ideation was followed by conceptual sketching of mental models, interaction patterns and visual examples. To understand the usability, feasibility and viability of the approach a Proof of Concept Prototype was designed and built.
First iterations of the actual product.
Impact & Learnings
As the content dimension of the initiative eventually set some challenging roadblocks in the way, we did release a product selected Viaplay customers where many of the initial ideas for the product came to fruition, and the respons from customers was very positive. The way to interact with the interface and navigate horisontally and vertically was perceived as both inspiring and easy to understand, and the usage for customers with tablets and phones increased with the launch as well as positive impact on churn numbers.
A big win was that we proved to ourselves as an organisation the power of reserch driven ideation and the effectiveness of concept prototyping, uncovering many challenges and opportunities early to keep momentum and speed in the build phase, something the org was struggling with in many other initiatives. This project had a huge impact on the ways of working for many parts of the organisation going forward.
Impact & Learnings
As the content dimension of the initiative eventually set some challenging roadblocks in the way, we did release a product selected Viaplay customers where many of the initial ideas for the product came to fruition, and the respons from customers was very positive. The way to interact with the interface and navigate horisontally and vertically was perceived as both inspiring and easy to understand, and the usage for customers with tablets and phones increased with the launch as well as positive impact on churn numbers.
A big win was that we proved to ourselves as an organisation the power of reserch driven ideation and the effectiveness of concept prototyping, uncovering many challenges and opportunities early to keep momentum and speed in the build phase, something the org was struggling with in many other initiatives. This project had a huge impact on the ways of working for many parts of the organisation going forward.