DirecTV Sports Viewing Experience Research

My Role Co-Lead Research Initiatives

Duration 5 weeks June-July 2018 at DirecTV

Summary: This online user research study made use of prototype designs for the DTVNow sports experience. Research goals focused primarily on the hierarchy needs, mainly rational needs, though some emotional needs arose incidentally through self-moderated feedback.

We were getting feedback on the design of the Live Games Design, Past Games Design, and Future Games Design.

Research Goals

The Rational Need is defined as the specific goal the user is trying to accomplish using the product (in this case). The Emotional Need is defined as how the user feels during the experience using the product to accomplish the task at hand.

1. Show the experience for finding a game on DTVNow (rational need)

2. Show how users comprehend game info layout (rational need)

3. Identify feature-specific usability issues (rational need)

4. Reveal user expectations (rational & emotional need)

5. Guide further designs (rational & emotional need)

Visual Stimuli / Mock Screens

To facilitate online user research, the prototype experience was built using InVision and Sketch by the designer assigned to the project. It mimicked the design of what the new redesigned DTV Now experience would be like. The mock screens cannot be displayed due to no disclosure agreements. If there are questions about the screen designs please email me and I can discuss further to try to clarify.

Methodology

An unmoderated online research study measures users’ natural experiences as removed from researcher support or influence. Quantitative and qualitative data will be collected. UserZoom will facilitate the research study to be completed in a single sitting.

The target sample is twelve users (including attrition). Sample size is based on a desire for increased confidence with discovering usability issues (Francik, 2015), given online, unmoderated participation which can make the user experience more complex. From the twelve users we got 7 users material that was usable.

Part II: Think Out Loud / TOL

1. 6 Think Out Louds with simultaneous screen, audio, video recording

   • Task time set at 3 minutes per TOL to contain video data

   • After each task there is a Post-task experience survey: (1) task confidence rating (2) task efficiency rating (3) task ease rating (4) usefulness of information presented (5) expectations – carousel interaction specifically (6) additional redesign feedback

2. Think Out Loud Tasks

   1. “Describe what you see, want to see, can do, hope to do…”

   2. “Talk through how you would find a live game to watch…”

   3. “Talk through how you would determine the score or time left in a live game…”

   4. “Talk through how you would find a future game to record…”

   5. “Talk through how you would find a past game to re-watch…”

   6. “Talk through how you would identify the game result for a past game…”

Insights from Research

Brief Overview: In the surveys, users reported liking the overall experience to some degree, but video footage contradicted their feedback. People learned and relied on carousels and chips until these failed to provide what they were looking for with Future and Past Games.

• Live Games are free of serious usability issues. Carousels and chips aided task ease, efficiency, and confidence. 

• Future and Past Games have serious usability issues. Task ease, efficiency, and confidence were diluted when users could not rely on carousels and chips.

Live Games are games that are currently being televised.

Users discover and like to rely on the carousels.

Carousels appeal. Users navigated to either the sports or recent channels carousels.

Search is desirable. Some users navigated to search.

Live chips communicate effectively, but may not be readily understood by all users. 

Chips enable scanning. Users understood the score and time left without having to click.

Chips may not work for all users. Some users preferred the station’s score box.

Past Games are games that were previously aired at an earlier time or day.

The sports carousel enables Past Game searching - to an extent.

Browsing began in the sports carousel. Users navigated here before going elsewhere.

Pathing and marking is unclear. Past Games do not have an obvious location or marking.

Frustration continues. Tasks again took longer and challenged user confidence.

Chips also enable Past Game searching - sometimes.

Chip info may help users. Markings like “final” or “final score” help some users.

Chip info may not be intuitive. Some users bypassed chip markings and went elsewhere.

Despite chips and the sports carousel, several users still cannot find Past Games.  

Users get lost in the interface. Users later discovered Watch Now, Discover, & Library.

Persistent struggle led to the Guide. Guide was again a backup strategy. 

Over-clicking resulted in task failure. About half of all users never found Past Games.

Future Games are games that are set to be televised in the future on a channel.

Users struggled to find a Future Game to record.

Pathing is inefficient. While some users reported ease, tasks still took
longer to complete. 

Marking is unclear. Users found recording tasks difficult and
recording poorly marked.

Users expected the interface to behave more intuitively.

Overflow was confusing. A few users believed the recording function was located there.

Confirmation is desirable. Users wanted the final design to confirm recording.

Search is desirable. Users also wanted the final design to allow ‘search’
for Future Games.

Despite problems, users started in the sports carousel. 

Pathing is learnable. Once discovered, users began to rely on the sports carousel.

Users over-click. When the sports carousel did not deliver, frustrated over-clicking set in. 

Backup strategies emerge. Over-clicking led to search or the Guide.

Summary of Key Findings and Suggestions

(1) Take advantage of learnability by providing clear, replicable paths to finding Past or Future Games. 

(2) Allow for alternate paths and backup paths.

(3) Make all Game types more findable by marking them or distinguishing them clearly from one another.