TITLE OF THE PROJECT - App Redesign

The blurb of the project - Creating a redesigned app experience for the Lifetime, FYI, A&E and History TV Everywhere streaming product

Role: UX Designer and Researcher

Client: A+E Networks

Download the apps:

iOS: Lifetime / History / A&E / FYI

Android: Lifetime / History / A&E

Accomplishments: Establishing an internal and external user recruitment process, creating personas and user story maps, creating and iterating on end-to-end flows, making wireframes, providing user test insights across multiple product teams

Provide background information: A+E Networks® is a collection of culture brands that includes A&E®, HISTORY®, Lifetime®, Lifetime Movies™, FYI ™, VICELAND®, and BIOGRAPHY®. Found in eight out of ten American homes, A+E Networks cumulatively reaches 335 million people worldwide and 500+ million digital users.

I joined the digital product team responsible for the TV Everywhere product at A+E Networks in the fall of 2015 as the in-house UX Designer and Researcher for emerging platforms. Designing for emerging platforms meant designing for iOS and Android devices across mobile, tablet, and OTT platforms (Apple TV, Roku). I was hired during the redesign of the apps.

BACKGROUND

By the time I joined, most of the visual redesign work was already done and done very well. The team was waiting to build. (Read more about my experience here)

Being in-house, despite the visual design being so far ahead (thanks to my talented art director and UI designer on the team) the progress for building, testing the builds, and shipping remained slow (of course). As the first dedicated UX Designer + Researcher on the team, my role became more about aligning the team on the value of UX every step of the way until we finally launched and TVE Apps version 3.0 became live and in the hands of millions of users.

THE CHALLENGE

How do we implement a steady UX practice across platforms and brands for the same product? We were responsible for the redesign of four distinct brands (Lifetime, History, A&E and FYI) across platforms, both for iOS and Android.

How do we create a system for regular testing sessions within the company internally?
How do we figure out when and how to recruit testers externally?
What kinds of research methodologies do we use given resource restrictions?
How do we create a system to facilitate remote user testing sessions?

Redesigning of the app also meant an opportunity to revisit the current flow for authentication into cable services, for single-sign on (SSO) by encouraging users to create profiles, and to increase the view for unauthenticated users.

THE OUTCOME

I was responsible for creating the information architecture for the end-to-end experience of the app, chasing people for interviews, documenting insights, relaying it back to the team, creating different versions of the user flow and working inseparably with my colleague, who was the Visual Designer on the team, to iterate on the final deliverable.