OSN is the leader of entertainment content in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The equivalent of Sky in the UK, OSN provides content from all major networks such as Warner Bros, HBO, Universal and ESPN.

Recently, OSN launched a new sub-brand called “WAVO” which targeted a younger audience. It refreshed its product offering by introducing a new monthly subscription model, a shift from its parent brand- OSN's current annual subscriptions.

THE CHALLENGE

Our challenge was to redesign the browsing catalogue experience for On Demand using a ground up approach. We scanned across all platforms including apps for Mobile, Tablet across iOS and android, as well TV and responsive web.  

MY ROLE

As one of two UX lead on the project, working alongside our Executive Experience Directors, I oversaw the project from discovery through to detailed design, with a focus on the global navigation and the browsing experience for the mobile app and responsive web journeys.    

The week long intensive discovery workshop in Dubai allowed us to better understand OSN’s current ecosystem and their vision for WAVO. 

We worked alongside the OSN research and strategy team to analyse existing insights (which included qualitative research, quantitative surveys & usage analytics), map out the competitive landscape and explore design concepts through a series of co-sketching sessions with various end users and stakeholders. 

The goal of these sessions wasn’t so much about deriving the solutions, but gleaning inputs from the co-sketching sessions to help us spot the problems at hand and also allow us to identify culture, mindset and pain-points from the lens of our end customers.

Giving every product a purpose from the business perspective and a reason to exist from the eyes of the customer.

At the post discovery stage, our team began by grouping user stories into a series of epics. We prioritised these into MVP while maintaining a product backlog. We tackled each epic within 2 week sprints (larger epics span across two sprints).  

Within each sprint, our typical design process involved conducting desk research and competitive analysis around the particular epic. The purpose of doing so was for us to understand the industry landscape and gain useful insights about the user mindset and mental model. Based upon this understanding, our teams ran ideation workshops, often with a focus on specific user pain-points or opportunities.

For example, during the “Browse” epic, our research showed that 80% of users typically decide on what to watch by interacting with the top 2 trays from within the homepage. These trays are typically “Recommended for you” and “Continue watching”. For WAVO, since our recommendation engine was far from being personalised, we needed an engaging way to encourage users to explore the app rather than solely relying on the top 2 trays on the homepage.  

Our ideation workshops and co-sketching sessions were often internal but we welcomed stakeholders’ involvement whenever they were at the London office. During post ideation, we would rapidly prototype to get our ideas ready for user testing. 

Testing was a fundamental part of the project. It not only allowed us to build confidence in our design, but to also effect culture change at OSN, helping them understand how we can create a culture of evidence-based design within their offices.

8 rounds of testing were carried out at our London offices as well 12 rounds of testing during the workshops in Dubai. 

Test Analysis

At the end of every test, we would analyse the recordings in order to gather observation notes and observe how participants interacted with our prototypes. Based on this analysis, we outlined key findings and more importantly, elaborated on how we plan to act upon these findings.

DESIGN EXPLORATIOn

Snapshot of our design exploration, iterations, visual design and prototypes