BBC

The challenge:

Across all BBC digital touch points, only 35% of users successfully complete the registration journey.

This project explored the possible causes.

The process:

Analysis of customers feedback
Competitors analysis and heuristic evaluation of the journey
Co-design workshop
Design of prototypes
Preparation and delivery of in-depth interviews
Insights and final design

WHAT I LEARNED

The key to successfully leading this project was focusing on communication and alignment within the team. With many teams and designers at the BBC, work often overlaps, leading to confusion and undermining motivation and trust. By ensuring everyone's participation and emphasizing a collaborative journey, we fostered appreciation and understanding of a human-centric design approach. This also provided well-documented insights, enabling the team to continue the work seamlessly after my contract ended.

WHAT I LEARNED

TEAM & ROLE

I worked as UX Designer and Researcher with a PM and a Content Designer. I was supervised by a Lead Researcher and a UX Director.

WHAT I DID

Workshop design, In depth user interviews, analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, wireframes.

WHAT I DID

I led research and analysis, presentation and outcome, managed project deadlines and provided mentorship for team members

WHAT I DELIVERED

Workshop, User interviews, reports and wireframes.

WHAT I DELIVERED

Alignment workshop, Ethnographic research findings, User testing findings, mapping of the current experience and pain points, design principle and roadmap

PROJECT OUTCOME

Research report and new page content

Analysis of customer feedbacks

The first step in this project involved reaching out to customer support and analyzing all the complaints users made over the past four months regarding the registration process. By grouping the complaints by theme and calculating the percentage of each, we discovered that the primary issue was not with the form page itself but with the newly introduced mandatory registration. Users felt coerced into registering and consequently providing personal information, which was previously optional.

Several complaints also indicated users' fears of being discovered for not having a TV license and general confusion about the types of data requested by different apps, which often seemed irrelevant. For instance, users were perplexed by the mandatory request for their gender when downloading a weather app. Additionally, our analysis revealed issues with form bugs (postocde and address) and a confusing account recovery process.

We promptly addressed the bugs and took the opportunity to review and enhance the accessibility of some form fields. This immediate action marked our first significant success in improving the user experience.

Competitors analysis and evaluation

The next step involved conducting a competitor analysis to understand how other media providers handle sensitive data requests. Our investigation revealed that all outlets were aware of users' concerns about sharing personal information. In response, some outlets have developed various strategies to address these concerns effectively. For example, The Guardian is very transparent about the use of data for advertising purposes while also reassuring users about potential mismanagement and setting clear expectations.I categorized the competitors based on their strategies and highlighted those that seemed to address user concerns most effectively.

User interviews and insights

We tested two approaches to improve the account registration experience, particularly focusing on the detail page. In both approaches, the copy emphasized the BBC's public pledge to serve everyone while reassuring users about data safety, which we believed would positively impact user experience.In one of the options, we also tested a multi-step journey, dividing the form into smaller, more manageable steps to determine if this approach made the data request process more digestible for users.Workshop activities: Squiggle birds (icebreaker) and Crazy8

We recruited 8 partecipants, including people with cognitive disabilities, in order to test he clarity of the new copy, and with less-represented genders such as fluid and transexual. All sessions lasted approximately 60 minutes. Participants were asked a series of questions about their existing experience with the BBC Weather app and to perform the task of registering for an account in 3 different journeys. Each of the three journeys presented was

designed to help understand the opinions and reactions to personal data requests in order to

identify opportunities to improve customers’ experience.

Executive summary:

Attitudes towards data request varies according to the users’ beliefs and situation.

We found that the users most hesitant were the young adults in the group who did not hold a TV license. We suggest further research into this group to investigate if there is potential to convert them into new registered accounts.

The explanatory copy over data request, as it stands, is too vague and needs to be refined further to be clearer on the following points:

• The creation of a pan BBC account and the specific characteristics of this account

(what does it offer, if a TV license is required etc).

• How data collected are actually used to guarantee inclusion (Ofcom report).

• How personalisation and customisation are implemented without descending into

stereotyping.

The findings from this research informed our strategy for the next six months regarding registration and had a broader impact on handling the pan-BBC account and TV license issues. Most importantly, the research highlighted the urgent need to clarify app usage, especially for younger generations. These users are the most likely to abandon the BBC, as they are not traditionally connected to the institution and show less interest in TV programs.

Co-design workshop and prototypes preparation

Throughout each key step of the project, we maintained consistent communication with weekly updates and key presentation meetings to summarize the work completed up to that point. This approach was instrumental in keeping all stakeholders aligned and fostering a relationship of trust, which is especially crucial when a freelancer is collaborating with an in-house team.

One of the most important workshops we conducted focused on presenting the competitor analysis findings. During this workshop, we engaged in a co-design session to collaboratively decide on the user journeys we wanted to create. The activities all team members participated in included:

Who, What, Where, Why: Each member listed what they knew about the issues from their area of expertise.
T-Bar: Members sketched their ideas and presented them to the group.
Provoca Prompts: An exercise to expand on initial concepts by considering scenarios such as "What if we had more money?" or "What if we had less time?"

These activities facilitated a comprehensive and collaborative approach to designing user journeys, ensuring that all perspectives were considered and ultimately decided which ideas we were going to test.

Co-design workshop and prototypes preparation

Who, What, Where, Why: Each member listed what they knew about the issues from their area of expertise.
T-Bar: Members sketched their ideas and presented them to the group.
Provoca Prompts: An exercise to expand on initial concepts by considering scenarios such as "What if we had more money?" or "What if we had less time?"

Co-design workshop and prototypes preparation

Who, What, Where, Why: Each member listed what they knew about the issues from their area of expertise.
T-Bar: Members sketched their ideas and presented them to the group.
Provoca Prompts: An exercise to expand on initial concepts by considering scenarios such as "What if we had more money?" or "What if we had less time?"