In a team of students from different disciplines – user experience design, industrial design, & communication systems engineering

The challenge

BT, as client, wanted to ...

enhance key live events or BT produced ‘flagship’ shows
acquire more ‘BT Infinity’ or high bandwidth service customers
provide a unique selling point for BT Broadband and BT TV so that customers choose these services as their providers over competition

The approach

We believed that a user-centred approach would be essential to the success of the design. We wanted design research to generate user insight and inform design ideas.

There process was roughly Research → Insight → Iterative Design (through testing) → Delivery. The reality is that as we moved forward, sometimes we had to do a bit more research or gained more insight by testing.

Design research

Desk-based (secondary) and primary research.

Secondary research helped us understand the market, BT's offerings, BT's competitors in sports, & potential technologies to utilise. It also helped us decide to focus on the experience of watching Rugby and focus on mobile devices as extension screens.

We used ethnographic methods to understand potential customers. We conducted...

observation; I went to 2 rugby matches to observe spectators and their behaviour (watched 6 matches as a team)
guerrilla interviews; I casually interviewed 2 spectators around the pitch (interviewed 6 as a team). As we were discovering interesting points during this round, we recruited some of the participants for more in-depth interviews.
semi-structured interviews; format and the learning objectives for the interviews were decided on together (interviewed 5 in total as a team)

Analysis of data

We collectively used Affinity Diagramming to analyse the findings.

Key insights from guerrilla interviews

Fans enjoy the physicality of rugby – not in a brutal way but the sportsmanship of the physicality
The camaraderie of fans and teams is a big part of the live experience
Fans prefer the live experience
Rugby fans usually play or used to play rugby themselves
Fans receive rugby info passively through social media
Rugby fans are usually introduced to the sport by their father

Key insights from in-depth interviews

Users didn't want distractions while watching a game as they were intensely involved
Users enjoyed getting together for 'big' games – liked to share the experience
Users enjoyed re-living the intensity of key moments of the game
Users loved the live atmosphere of the game

👤

Our persona – David 🏉David is a big rugby fan and has been into rugby from a young age. His dad used to play and this encouraged David to play at school, since then he has been hooked. Regularly David goes to a live local match with his family and he enjoys the friendly atmosphere. David likes rugby because of the people, the tactics, the team aspect and the physicality of the game. 👀He finds out about scheduled events through twitter and specific matches from the Sky Sports website. He arranges with his four friends to watch the game around his house. While watching the game, he doesn't like distractions and is completely lost in the moment with his friends. During half times the group is less engaged with the TV, going to the toilet, using the kitchen, or using phones or tablets. 🔈David enjoys being able to hear what the referee is saying and sometimes to catch a shout from a player. He would like more audio from pitch level because it puts him ‘inside’ the game. He likes the curated TV experience as it's pretty immersive. 🎯David Experience goals... - Not to have the experience interrupted unnecessarily - To receive an intense sport experience for both halves of the game

Considerations for the solution – informed by insights

We continually aimed for least interaction and maximum experience.
The design would help users organise ‘gatherings’ and share information to enhance the groups' social experience.
Our design included a replay feature that doesn’t compromise the live experience.
Our design would allow users to tailor the audible experience.

Solution Finding

How Might We

Using 'How Might We' method, we tried turning insights and findings from our design research into problems statements guiding our concept generating sessions.

Concept generation

We had brainstorming sessions – done individually in the context of our group. Each person had 5 minute to present each of their ideas to the group. Followed by feedback and refinement of concepts.

We divided concepts with similar themes into 7 clusters and boiled them down. These are the 7...

Concept 1: Audio atmosphere

Imitating the live audio atmosphere of a match in the users' own place. Users also can control the sound of channels and the angle of cameras with options available on the smart TV.

Concept 2: Sensors experience

To give another dimension of realism to users while watching the match in their own home. For example, The TV has shock mounts or colourful lights around it, which vibrates or flashes when players hit each other or score.

Concept 3: Extension screen

The ‘second screen’ is synchronised with a smart TV to provide extra context and info for the user; for example, - Playback in slow-motion - Medical stats snapshot - Socialising with other fans

Concept 4: Capturing movement

Capturing the actions of both fans and players by sensors, to imitate a realistic experience and truly involving users as if they are part of the match.

Concept 5: Physical status

Collecting and providing the vital signs of players with live analysis to the users. This could also include medical updates and also explanations of Rugby rules.

Concept 6: Fans' reactions

The TV can collect fans’ applauses at home and play it in the actual game's arena live.

Concept 7: Internet club

An internet club focusing on connecting users, who are not familiar with Ruby, to one another to take part in watching matches and playing games. meanwhile, the discussion and comments will be displayed on the TV screen. Furthermore, user would be informed of news from other fans through a pop-up banner.

Evaluation of Concepts

To decide on what to take forward the team came together to mark each concept collectively.

Prototyping; low-fidelity

We had several rounds of prototyping to explore how we could implement the concepts...

Home & Fixtures

How to show live game + added value

Rewind & playback

Selecting a player for stats

... and more iterations

Changing audio settings

Granularly adjusting the audio experience

Getting stats on a specific team / player

Sharing the stats on the main screen

While watching a match...

...one could select a player...

...and get stats on that player.

Exploring how slow motion concept would work without causing confusion.

After 1 round of user testing with 2 participants (...not ideal), we did some more iteration...

Rewind button could also help target a player to show stats.

Top menu for adjusting audio experience.

Sitemap

Final Design

Includes 4 main functions: fixtures, statistics, playback, audio channels mixer

Fixtures, Reminder, & Sharing

Statistics

Live View & Rewind

Audio channels mixer

The output

The proposed solution was presented to BT at the Ipswich campus. The feedback was positive. This was sadly the end of the process and there was no scope for implementation. So, the outcome and impact couldn't be measured.

If I were to do this project again, I'd include more rounds of testing with potential customers to iterate on the design.

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