Help & Support

Supporting BT and TalkTalk customers on YouView

Brief

Update the Help app on YouView platform to bring it more in-line with the Next Generation user experience. Ensure that the design correspond with the YouView, BT and TalkTalk support sites whilst retaining the ability for users to troubleshoot their problems.

Customers who currently use the service but may have difficulty using the product due to sight-related issues. Customers who wish to have a more accessible TV service

The legacy YouView help menu was built as a way for customers to solve the problems they were facing in their own time. The depreciation of the legacy UI and the move to the Next Generation interface pushed forward the need to bring the Help App into line with the revamped service.

I was chosen to lead this project working alongside a junior designer and an intern, helping to guide them towards a final product

Client

YouView TV Ltd

Project Date

2018-2019

Role

Lead Product Designer

Problems & Goals

The release of the next generation YouView UI had left the help app feeling out of date and disconnected from the main user experience.

The help app, designed alongside the initial launch in 2012, was clunky, slow and was designed in a way which was no longer applicable for our needs.

Its usability was challenged and our data showed that we were having more calls and social media posts with problems that could be solved with an improvement in the help app

YouView app hero image

Goals

The goal of the help app was to create an convenient way to solve issues a user would have. We didn't want to just reskin the existing help app, we wanted to create a great experience that would help a user in a stressful time.

Create a consistent user journey matching the rest of the UI

Use a scalable template based system for iterative design

Lower the amount of calls and support-site hits

Role & responsibilities

I was placed into the project as the lead designer and worked collaboratively with both a junior UX designer and an intern from the visual design team, allowing them to progress designs and involving them in every stage of the process.

In addition, other designers were involved and contributed to ensure a collaborative working environment.

I stopped working on this project after stakeholder buy in, as the project was entered into our agile backlog

Project kickoff

Workshops and insights

At the beginning of the project the whole agile cluster was brought together to kick off.

By bringing all the team, developers, testers amongst others, gave everyone an opportunity to brainstorm the issue’s and to create a sense of ownership of the project for all.

We also brought in the information gathered by our viewer support team, as well as insights gained from the use of social media to help guide the conversation and to stay on topic.

This initial kickoff opened the conversation in the team and before long it became a team based user testing session. People were starting to find issues that we hadn't even seen reported by actual users, but which would make our product even better.

“I can't find the right article"

“I have to open each article to see if its the right one?"

"Why can't it just show me how to fix this?"

Existing customer feedback

Reevaluating the issues

All this work looking into the issues led to the team thinking on the initial brief.

Our insights told us that maybe the brief was wrong, it wasn't just the customers journey was difficult, but they were also not finding the relevant content and that led to frustration and in turn led to the customer phoning or using social media to air their frustrations.

We then had to ask the question, how can we present not just the best content, but the right content for the customer.

Redesiging

A customer doesn't always need to know exactly what's wrong. Sometimes they just want it fixed.

We didn't want the user to have to jump through hoops to find solutions and we wanted to make it quick and easy for them to get back to watching their favourite content.

YouView app hero image

Having the right information

A customer doesn't always need to know exactly what's wrong. Sometimes they just want it fixed. We didn't want the user to have to jump through hoops to find solutions and we wanted to make it quick and easy for them to get back to watching their favourite content.

With our initial whiteboard sessions, we came up with some major goals we wanted for the help app.

Making sure all error codes are linked to the articles

Having the most popular content at the forefront of the app

Making the videos the first thing that the customer sees

Ensuring that it's easy to find solutions to problems

Design Phase

Concepts & User Flows

YouView app hero image
YouView app hero image
YouView app hero image
YouView app hero image
YouView app hero image YouView app hero image

Prototyping & User Testing

3D Art Direction

Working with a group of freelance 3D artist's I led their direction for the production of images shown to the user on the topic pages. I wanted to ensure that the images related to the settings area where issues corresponded to create a link between the setting and the help topic.

YouView app hero image
YouView app hero image
YouView app hero image

Final Screens

YouView app hero image
YouView app hero image
YouView app hero image
YouView app hero image

Detailed specs

I created detailed documentation during this project to communicate specifications for the front-end development team and as well as out test team, for both manual and automated testing. Final delivery consisted of visual design specs through Zeplin app, as well as detailed flows and journeys upload to product managment applications to track development.

I also keeped track of development through the use of sign-off points entered into the production roadmap. This gave me the ability to present work-in-progress to senior managment teams and to take any feedback onboard to the wider cluster team.

YouView app hero image
YouView app hero image
YouView app hero image

ISP versions

Like the rest of the YouView interface, there is a requirement to create ISP versions of any feature, to more represent the shareholders brand and to create a seemless experience for their customers
As such we had to incorperate both BT and TalkTalk interface colours into the project.

YouView app hero image
YouView app hero image

Results & Conclustions

These results come from the user testing sessions with the final designs using a micxture of existing customers from all three user bases, BT TT and retail
This coming from in house user testing means the results are skewed and as such would not be indicative of a wider release
More than 80% of participents would use the help app as thier first point of call in the event of an error
The most hughly reguarded feature was the acess to most common issues

The imagery relating to the settings area was also highlighted as a way to quickly link areas

Next Steps

This project was not supposed to be the final version, it is onlyt the first version of an iterative agile process in making the help app as useful as a feature for the customer We took feedback and are ensuring the product is the best experience it can bre