Project overview
Background
Sky's Entertainment OS (EntOS) platform had been enhanced with the backend functionality to support multiple price points for Partner subscriptions. This was a redesign of our existing Commerce journeys to accomodate this new functionality.
This was an 11 month project which I joined 3 months in after the 1st round of user testing.
Customer problems
• Fragmented pricing plans: customers could only view 1 pricing plan on TV and would need to go online to view the other pricing plans. This scattered pricing information leads to potential confusion and frustration (lack of transparency).
Business Goals
• Onboard more partners: Successful execution with initial Partner Disney+ to entice other partners to agree to this model.
Scope and Constraints
Scope was mainly Prospect (New Customers), Existing and Sky Q Legacy customers
Constraints related to
• Templates: limited to pre-existing templates within the TV Products Commerce world.
• Contractual obligations: considerations aorund legal obligations to the Partners.
The Process
1. Understanding the current experience
2. Regroup of existing work and previous research
3. Testing
4. Refinement
5. Future thinking
Success Metrics
• Increase in conversions (% of customers who complete a purchase) - this is currently 23.2%
• Decrease in cancellations during a Price increase window (customers opting to downgrade instead).
• Increase in activations due to the addition of a more contextual journey.
Results
Within 8 weeks
• Conversion rate (% of customers who complete a purchase) increased to 47.8% ( due to the lower price points being available)
• Cancellation rate: as of 2 Dec - TBC
• Another App partner expressed a strong desire to be onboarded to the new tiering model.
New Plan Page
Original Plan Page
The Process
Understanding the current experience
When I joined this project part-way through, my first step in the discovery process was to build a thorough understanding of the current user experience.
The most obvious pain point to the customer is not being able to compare all the price points on device (TV).
Customers can only select a single price point on device
Customers can view other tiers but would need to visit the Partner website (via QR code scan) to fully compare and select their desired subscription tier.
Short recording of current journey (entry point: Sky Shop)
Existing work, previous research and refinements
The next step was building an understanding of the existing work. I carefully reviewed the progress made by the previous designer to identify what had already been accomplished.
Based on this evaluation, I then looked for opportunities to enhance and add value to the ongoing project before proceeding further.
Prospect customers had the tiers displayed in order of increasing price.
Existing customers had an Active badge on the tier they are subscribed to with the remaining tiers displayed in order of increasing price
Prospect customer
Existing customer
I proposed renaming this tag because Customers who haven't activated their subscription may be confused about their subscription status (Consistency and Standards) especially if coming in to from the Your Products entry point.
Your Products
Existing customer
Proposed a change from Active tag to Current
The top rail displayed higher-level information like price, while the second rail detailed each tier.
Although selections could be made from either rail, the process felt clunky and repetitive, increasing cognitive load.
I looked in to optimising this but the feedback from our Developers and Design management indicated limited flexibility in changing our existing Commerce templates. However, the Product and Design directors supported revisiting our templates at a future date to improve scalability.
I proposed clarifying copy be included on the upgrade and downgrade Order summary pages. This was to assist the customer in understanding why today's payment differed from the tier price.
Upgrade order summary
Downgrade order summary
I also redesigned the Order Summary page to align with the existing Glass UI for consistency (Consistency and Standards).
Previous proposal was to provide an entry point back to the Your Products area post-purchase but I felt that getting to their content as soon as possible would be the more immediate need for a customer. (Aesthetic & Minimalist design).
I also saw further opportunities to optimise the existing 3 step cancellation journey.
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
3 step cancellation journey
An opportunity to optimise by including a retention screen
A round of unmoderated user testing had already been conducted prior to my take over. The main focus was assessing the relative importance of each tier feature to a customer.
Participants ranked Price as most important
I used the results of this research to give direction to the type of retention message to be proposed for the new screen.
One that would be focussed on price with the lowest tier retention message focussing on content.
Retention screen
I also optimised our Sky Q-legacy journeys, which account for around 14% of the existing marketplace user base.
Previously, Q customers added app subscriptions to their monthly Sky bill. For first-time App Market Place subscriptions, they needed to input card details, with no flow to manage their expectations.
I proposed introducing a Q Legacy intercept screen after tier selection but before entering the purchase flow, to better guide users through the process.
Multi-tiers Page Q Legacy intercept screen Order summary
Q Legacy Intercept screen
- to manage expectations about the unfamiliar purchase journey
I identified an opportunity to optimize our Activation journey.
After a purchase, customers are prompted to use a QR code to activate (or create) their account on the web, but the activation rate remained low at XXX% due to friction (switching devices) and a lack of clarity on activation benefits. I proposed adding an intercept screen to provide context and improve activation rates during upgrades or downgrades.
Activation Intercept
- Additional context to the customer
Activate now ---> QR code
Activate later ---> Sales journey
An existing customer who hasn't activated their account and intends to change their tiers would be prompted to activate just before entering the sales journey, regardless of the entry point.
Your Products
Activation Intercept
QR code screen - web handoff to create the customer account
I sense checked this solution with Product as well as the Commercial team to address any concerns about adding this Intercept screen before a sales journey. With no concerns being raised, I was green-lit to include this within the Multitiers scenarios.
2nd round of Testing
Previous research focused on feature ranking for each tier, but I aimed to evaluate the intuitiveness of comparing tier features.
Collaborating with a UX researcher, we defined Research objectives to
• Identify any barriers during subscription tier migration.
• Evaluate the impressions and interactions during the cancellation journey.
• Identify ways to improve the transition process from Sky Q to AMP (App Market Place)
• Uncover any further opportunities to optimise the Multi-tiers journey.
Due to limited researcher resources and time constraints, the UX Researcher and I decided to launch a self-serve unmoderated usability study.
Collaborating with the Product Manager and UX Copywriter, we identified key flows to test that aligned with our research objectives.
Chosen flows (3 studies - 8 participants each)
• Study 1: Upgrade
• Study 2: Downgrade and Cancellation • Study 3: Q-Legacy
• Study 1: Upgrade
• Study 2: Downgrade and Cancellation • Study 3: Q-Legacy
I documented these flows in Miro and encouraged the Product Manager, Copywriter and the UI Designer to add their questions or hypotheses to each screen.
Miro screenshot example to illustrate this
This was to guide me in how to structure the questions/tasks for the unmoderated testing.
Downgrade & Cancellation testing script/tasks
Participants were recorded while completing test tasks and encouraged to think out loud.
After recruitment, I reviewed the recordings, noting observations from participants’ actions and comments.
Once note-taking was finished, I collated high-level findings for each task within each study.
Data collation
Close up
Executive Summary of Insights (Across all 3 studies)
Multi-tiers screen
"How do participants interact with this screen?" 🙁
Majority of participants (85%) made their selection from the first rail without navigating down to compare
The 15% that navigated down to compare, navigated back up and then selected their tier.
- they didn't realise they could also select from the Compare plans rail
"How easy or difficult was it?" 😐
I had to caveat these responses
- Most chose based on price (from the top rail) so answers may have been solely based on price comparison.
Order summary screen 😊
"Do customers need further clarification around Today's payment figure?"
The majority of participants (90%) skimmed through the order summary page (possibly due to the high cognitive load of the information presented).
However, when prompted to revisit and comment on their understanding of today’s payment figure, 80% of them understood why their payment for today would differ from their subscription charge.
Q-Legacy Intercept screen
"What is participant comprehension of their status?" 🙁
Majority of participants (87%) skimmed through this screen (only read the header and CTA label).
- High cognitive load from information presented
Refinement
After analysing the data, I conducted multiple presentations to Product, Senior Leadership, and Commercial teams.
I shared research findings, user flows, and recommendations, aiming to communicate insights and gather feedback on proposed changes.
Amending Cancel subscription to Manage subscription
This was to give customers access to more actions available within the Your Products area (including Cancel subscription).
Although the feedback from user testing and presentations was mainly focused on the copy, I wanted to envision what the Multi-tiers page could look like if given the opportunity to revisit and update our Commerce templates in the future.
Multi-tiers future thinking 🤔
• A single rail that a customer can compare and select their tier from (no need to navigate down to look for additional comparison info).
• Adopting psychological pricing principles such as anchoring or social proof to help customers in their purchasing decision ("best value").
• Clear CTA to prompt action
- Second rail to showcase App Partner's content e.g. Discover Disney+
Future thinking Multi-tiers screen
Although it was disappointing to be so restricted by the template, I’m optimistic about the groundwork I've established for future discussions. I believe the forward-thinking exploration and documentation I've created will be valuable when this topic is revisited.
Given the constraints, I’m confident this was the best possible user experience we could deliver
20 second video of the new functionality (Prospect customer)
REFLECTION
This was a challenging project that required me to lean heavily on my experience in stakeholder management. In addition to the business goals, I also had to seek alignment with legal and the commercial/marketing teams to make sure we could provide the best possible user experience given our constraints.
Key takeaways
Questioning the status quo: By questioning how well the current Commerce templates supported the design solution, it started a conversation amongst Senior leadership about the importance of scalability for the future.
Refined Scenario mapping: From previous projects, I had given core scenarios the main focus with edge cases being considered later on in the project. The Multi-tiers edge cases were significant and complex in nature and it would have been more efficient to have considered them upfront alongside the core scenarios.
