Get in the game.
Feature Development: Cross-league highlights & focus-shiftingNFL Sunday Ticket R&D for 2M+ Live Viewers
Led 3 weeks of feature R&D while on agency retainer. Creating design vision and feature options for a personalized content feed.
Client
Product
Goal
DIRECTV
NFL Sunday Ticket
Monetize a Feed experience, promote Red Zone and Fantasy Zone upsells
The dark theme direction that was chosen was layered, atmospheric, and immersive, with highly visualized player data and condensed gothic sans serif all caps headings.
NFL Football accounts for 1/3 of sports viewing on TV, & 96% of that viewing is live.
Looking to create parity across the product portfolio, DTV was interested in exploring options for the feed experience that was being developed and monetized on other product streams for the Sunday Ticket Live Streaming Video Experience.
The engagement entailed a brainstorming session and feature development for the feed experience in the iOS app.
The heart of fandom
Learnings from a year-long study of fan behaviors showed differing behavior types across varying modalities of use.
Behavior Segments
Ritual Fandom
Motivated by ritual and superstition － Nearly 44% of fans act to "help" their team, including specific viewing positions, wearing lucky clothing, and specific cheers. These rituals spike before game time, including cooking, chanting, and arranging lucky items.
Team Pride
Primarily interested in highlights, big plays, and wins, fans motivated by pride are interested in the positive outcomes more than overall performance during the game. They can get the benefits of game day anytime during or after the game and are less interested in bragging rights than an individual sense of pride.
Game Play
Less motivated by team allegiance and more motivated by game play, these fans are watching for the love of the game. They’re in it for the sport and experience less superstition, emotion, and nostalgia than other fan types. Behaviors peak during the game, and they’re more interested in the competitive parity of the matchup than in the entertainment value.
Social Connection
Modern rituals involve second-screen engagement (social media, fantasy, or group threads), with 63% of fans engaging in real-time online conversations. Conversations are live and can be before, during, or after the game.
39% of fans cite that their loyalty was a family tradition, making home viewing a crucial part of passing down team allegiance.
Translating Research to Action
Content Explorations
Game Time
Montage - A Feed Designed for Fans
Providing options that address user needs during different watching modalities and originally looking to increase viewership outside of game time.
Given the interest in monetizing the feed experience for this brief engagement, we focused on where 96% of users already were, enhancing the app experience with a feed during live game time.
Interaction Model
Stay in your game. Surface what's happening elsewhere without pulling you out
Focus Shifting
Real-time, organized chronologically, not editorially
Cross-league highlights
Realtime data in the moment. You see the stat because the play happened, not because you went looking.
Player stats on big plays
Designing for game time
Defining interactions for live plays across multiple games while considering time as the primary way to organize the content.
Low-fidelity rapid prototyping for concept development.
Keep your game open while you see highlights across the league.
Story Refinements
To align to fan behaviors
Content Refinement Questions
To be brought to UXR
What’s the right amount of Stat Detail?
What information do users want to see for big plays? (Player? Team? General?)
Should users be able to deep dive? Or get small stat bites with each play? Or both?
How does audio focus-shifting impact the user experience?
Design Process
(3 Weeks)
Final Delivery
Working 1:1 with the client-side team:
Ingesting Fan Study Research
Brainstorming session with client-side product lead
Feature development research
Insights gathering on user needs and user behaviors on iOS
Visioning
Content Architecture
Paper prototyping
Sketching
Wireframing
UI Design
Motion Prototype
Fan Journey Map
Design Vision
Research Handoff
Motion Prototype
Game on
Focus shifting from live game to live highlights
Montage of Big Play Highlights
All the football.
Never miss a minute.
Swipe between games, catch highlights in real-time, and view player stats for big plays.
