Reflection

"If the future is personal why have a family account?"

As we have decided to use iPad's for our solution, we wonder whether it is personal enough. In some cases families have multiple tablet devices in their households, but in other cases they are shared. In order to maintain the personalisation, we will have an administrators account and subsequent profiles - with the profiles having limited permissions (as you don't want unauthorised payments). We will have to address this within our prototype video.

We recieved feedback about our concept, which told us that the learning or "substitutions" concept is a positive, and we should highlight this within a scenario. We could also use the concept to give credit when users "under spend" on their package. This means that the user could put the credit towards films or extra channels for a limited time.

Our final prototype video should also be a narrative with people, with visual queues about how to use the application. We need to refine our story, highlight the elements that are most important and create a video which relays this information effortlessly.

Lets Talk About Business

We feel that the Sky+ consumer will definitely benefit from our proposed service due to the bespoke, extra personalised service that it will offer, however, we wanted to ensure that the service would make sense for the Sky brand itself, from a business perspective. 

From our research we learnt that both Baby Boomer and Millennial users regularly engage in casual TV viewing. The live recommendation feature which we have implemented into our concept will suggest programmes that the user will enjoy, which are 'on now,' based on their viewing history. This will ensure that even a casual viewing experience is a positive one, and will encourage users to watch shows they love more regularly. The general recommendations again will suggest TV shows based on the users viewing history, and aims to encourage users to record or set reminders for these shows, allowing the user to make the most of their Sky subscription. 

Adding micro-profiling to our concept will ensure the service is personalised to the individual as opposed to the family. This will help sky develop their knowledge of individual users, different demographics and their viewing habits. Another feature we intend to implement is the addition of 'trending' or 'popular' viewing recommendations which are based on the users demographic. We feel this feature will increase engagement with sky customers by offering suggestions that may not be the users usual viewing choice, encouraging them to explore exciting new content. 

Our 'substitutions' concept, which is based around the idea that users could exchange channels they don't watch for ones that they would get more use out of and would add an extra level of personalisation to the Sky service and could result in users viewing more regularly by having access to channels they prefer. We also intend to implement a credit system, whereby a users monthly underspend would be redeemable against box office movies. This would ideally encourage users to explore the Sky box office more regularly and potentially purchase additional movies. 

Concept Storyboard

Ms. Anderson is a customer of the Sky Original Bundle, and her family are avid TV viewers.

The My Sky application provides quick and easy access to bills & payments, household preferences etc. as well as My Hub profiles. 

 Heather uses her My Hub profile to set TV reminders and recordings in her own personal recording space. Live TV recommendations suggest relevant programmes in real-time and trending programmes display popular TV of Sky customers in the same demographic as Heather.  

My Hub displays TV recommendations, tailored to Heather's TV viewing tastes, based on the data collected on her TV preferences.

TV suggestions are made to Heather, allowing her to view series on demand.

These recommendations allow Heather to discover more of the TV she loves. 

Over time, My Sky learns about the Anderson's TV viewing habits and creates a package that is tailored to their needs. 

Ms. Anderson can view her package details directly from the My Sky home page.

The Original Bundle is made more personalised for the Anderson's. Unused channels are substituted for channels that air programmes the Anderson's like to watch, helping them to get a service that provides value for money. 

The Anderson's value their TV service and ultimately receive a bespoke personalised service from Sky, which helps them to feel recognised by the brand.

My Sky Concept Narrative

Mrs. Anderson and her family are avid TV viewers, and Mrs. Anderson currently is a customer of the Sky Original Bundle. As the owner of the account, Mrs. Anderson views her My Sky account on her iPad, which allows her to access package details, bills & payments and household preferences and settings, as well as her My Hub profile. Each additional family member can create their own profile on the My Sky iPad application, located in the Hub. Heather uses her My Hub profile on her mother's My Sky account to set her own TV reminders and record TV programmes that she likes in her own personal recording space. Heather can also view TV series recommendations that are tailored to her TV viewing tastes. Live TV recommendations suggest relevant programmes in real-time based on the data collected on Heather's TV preferences. My Hub also displays the trending programmes of the users who are within the same demographic as Heather, which allows her to expand her TV viewing, and discover more of the TV she loves. Over time, My Sky learns about the Anderson's TV viewing habits and creates a package that is tailored to their needs. The Original Bundle is made more personalised to the Anderson's by substituting unused channels with channels that air programmes they are interested in, helping them to get a service that is value for money. The Anderson's value their TV service and ultimately receive a bespoke personalised service from Sky, which helps them to feel recognised by the brand.

Utilising 'Trends'

We wanted to ensure our 'Hub' concept would offer a personalised experience for all users, which would largely be done through live TV recommendations based on the users TV viewing and recording history. Our research informed us that both Baby Boomers and Millennials often discuss TV programmes with their friends/family, which means that they are likely to be interested in the same programme kind. We though that it might be useful to have a 'trending' section within the interface so that users could see what programmes are most popular, perhaps both in real-time and on demand. To ensure this feature continued to enrich the personalisation of the 'Hub' we would show the trends based on the users demographic - meaning that we can target both the Baby Boomers and the Millennial users independently.

Substitutions

For our substitutions concept, we feel that we could utilise the data from the real-time TV recommendations, the recommendations based on recordings, reminders and previously viewed TV. We felt that we could improve people's TV viewing giving "more of the TV you love" by changing the TV package by making channel substitutions automatically. In other words, disused channels will be removed and replaced with channels that air programmes that are recommended to them. This could then ultimately lead to an upgrade or downgrade being recommended. Updating this in the background for you removes unnecessary cost.

Feedback

As we were still uncertain whether we were going to use an iPad application for our concept, we are still thinking about the advantage of this.

We received some feedback from DigitasLBi on our concept development which will help us to proceed with our concepts. They liked our ideas but found that they did not fully understand how we would implement it alongside other features of My Sky. In the discussion of our presentation we mentioned our idea for seamless upgrades/downgrades. We felt that we could improve people's package by making channel substitutions in the background using the data collected from the box. This could then lead to upgrade/downgrade being recommended or being substituted within their current budget.

For our wearable tech, DigitasLBi suggested looking at existing wearable tech that people already own, for example FitBit. This is because it could be expensive for families to purchase wristbands for each of them. We are therefore going to consider our Hub Mate as a progressive enhancements. In other words, as an additional item that you don't necessarily need but can have in order to improve the experience further.

Sky Go + Sky Service = My Sky

For our concept realised that we will need to combine some of the features of Sky Go with Sky Service application to create our My Sky application for a tablet device. 

Sky Interface

To continue our concept we want to re-design the Sky Home interface and incorporate the features of My Sky into it. We also want to add 2 options onto the home screen which are Live TV recommendations and My Hub. When profile is selected in My Hub, the whole interface would change colour to indicate the profile that is "logged in". You could also opt to make recordings in private mode to appear in your personal recordings.

Concept Development Presentation

Our concepts focus on using personalisation to create a abetter viewing experience. We have 3 main concepts that drive our solution. 

Our research told us that the most popular TV viewing method for both demographics was casual TV viewing. To enhance casual TV viewing we would like to implement live TV recommendations based on previous viewings and recordings, which are illustrated in the scenario.

Our My Hub concept is based on a micro-profiling concept where each family member has their own TV account on an iPad or TV interface. This means that TV can be tailored to each user for increased personalisation leading to more accurate TV recommendations. The concept would be ideal for families who have different TV viewing habits, shown in the scenario.

Hub Mate is a wearable tech addition to the micro-profiling concept. We found that mood can influence TV viewing choices and we felt that we could use this data to recommend programmes to the user. The wristband could also control the TV with pule oximetry like the Virgin Media KipstR wristband. Each family member would have their own wristband, leading to increased personalisation of the TV subscription service.

Naming Our Concept

We thought of potential names for our concept and decided on "My Hub" as it has connotations of being the centre for activity.

MySky Personalisation

We want to create a highly tailored experience with relevant content given to the user. This would help Sky to recommend better services and provide upgrades without an extensive process. We must be careful not to bombard the user, but these "invisible" methods could be continuously learning about the user by remembering our preferences and last actions. One concept for this could be encouraging the user to "favourite" shows, or place them on a "watch list" which could lead to recommendations. Hyper personalisation and monitoring of the user behaviour could lead to seamless changes to upgrades and downgrades, even changing the preferences and settings automatically. Ultimately, this could help the user to feel like sky know and value them as an individual, providing a more meaningful relationship with the brand.

Small features such as changing your colour scheme on your personal hub to a colour of your choice helps users to feel like individuals. A key concept for us is personalisation, so we are ultimately attempting to design a service that feels unique to each user.

iPad, Could It Be Our Solution?

It is likely that both baby boomers and millennial users have access to an iPad. Our survey told us that 68.2% owned or had access to an iPad device in their household. If we were to chose iPad as our platform, it could work in conjunction with the TV to create a multi-channel solution. You could also use the iPad to control the television like you can with Sky+ App.

Mission Statement

A personalised TV viewing experience that gives you more of the TV you love.

Mood Based TV viewing

We thought about how we could implement mood into our solution.

Research Insight

Our research told us that 43.9% of Millennial users say mood influences time spent watching TV, with 80.3% saying that their mood can completely, moderately or influence a little their TV programme choice. 72.8% of Baby Boomers agreed.

Concept

Developing the micro-profiling concept, we implemented the addition of wearable tech to monitor mood. Each family member will have their own wristband which corresponds to a micro-profile on the MySky platform. When the user wears their wristband, MySky will be aware of who is watching the TV and will adjust to the correct profile (there is a family mode available for when there is multiple viewers). Like the KipstR wristband by Virgin Media, the wristband can also detect whether the user is asleep using pulse oximetry, and will pause or record the TV accordingly. Using a biometric sensor, the wristband can isolate specific emotions and make real-time TV recommendations based on the mood of the wearer.

Intelligent Family Micro-Profiling

From family subscription to individual personalisation, micro-profiling means that everyone will have their own account, they also have their own hours of recorded space, divided between the users. There will be a main user who is the bill payer, then the additional "profiles".

Research Insight

54.6% of Baby Boomers and 44.4% of Millennial users frequently or occasionally recorded TV series or programmes. 51.8% of Millennial users and 36.4% of Baby Boomers said that someone else takes up all the space for recordings, or their was not enough space available on their TV service. Baby Boomers and Millennial users resolved different TV viewing habits to their family/friends/partner by watching TV at different times - 63.6%/40.7%, or by watching their own TV programmes on catch up separately - 18.2%/51.9%. Baby Boomers and Millennial users said that their family/friends/partner have different TV preferences. 45.5% of Baby Boomers watch different programmes, 0% watch the same programmes and 54.6 experience a combination of both. 11.1% of Millennial users watch different programmes, 11.1% watch the same programmes and 77.8% experience a combination of both. 88.9% of Millennial users and 63.7% of Baby Boomers said that being bored frequently or occasionally gave them an incentive to watch and discover new TV programmes.

Concept 

Users can use the iPad application to control the television and create their own micro-profile on the TV subscription account where they have their own recording space and personalized recommendations can be made tailored to individual family members. It can prevent the problem faced when another family member takes up all the recording space or deletes recordings that are not made by them.

Scenario

The Anderson family are keen television watchers. Despite most evenings watching TV together, due to their busy schedules they have different TV viewing habits and tend to record their own programmes to catch up on later. The Anderson’s also have very different tastes in TV. Mrs. Hudson loves property and antique programmes whereas her daughter Heather prefers reality and crime drama, which often leads to issues of a clashing TV schedule, and usually this means that one of them has to miss out while the other programme gets recorded. With micro-profiling on the MySky iPad application, each family member is given their own dashboard, showing their own TV recommendations and space for recordings. This means that each family member can enjoy a tailored TV viewing service. Mrs. Anderson gets to watch her programme while Heather records her crime drama on her profile to watch when her Mum goes to bed. Both Heather and her Mum build their profile and increase the reliability of their recommendations by watching and recording the programmes they like.

Storyboard

Enhancing Casual TV Viewing

When you turn on the TV during the day time there is not often anything you can find that you want to watch. The common behaviour carried out is the browsing of

Research Insight

According to our research, millennials watch an average of 15-24 hours of TV a week compared with the baby boomers who watch between 0-4hours. Despite this, for both the millenials and baby boomers, casual viewing is the most popular method of TV viewing with 81.5% and 72.7% engaging in this respectively.

Concept

To enhance casual TV viewing, Live TV recommendations are given to users based on information collected via a content-based filtering method when users view or record programmes.

Scenario

As per his routine, Steve makes his breakfast and sits down to watch some day time TV; he is confronted with his common problem. Despite there being a multitude of channels, when scanning the TV guide Steve cannot see anything he is inclined to watch. This would usually mean that he settles on a TV programme that is mundane and uninteresting to him just to pass the time. However, Steve remembers that the latest MySky implementation on his Sky box makes live TV recommendations based on programmes that he has recently watched and recorded. MySky suggests several programmes that it thinks will interests him, which results in Steve discovering that there is an episode of CSI: Miami that he has not seen yet on a channel he does not usually view. Consequently, Steve experiences a longer TV viewing time and he leaves to carry out his day on a happier note.

Storyboard

Anti-Social Sky

In our initial brainstorm, we felt that there was potential to create a social platform within MySky for live discussion on TV programmes and a direct connection to social media similar to Beamly. Although this seemed like a strong concept, we found that our research negated the necessity for this.

Millennial Users: 33.3% frequently discuss TV programmes with other people with 92.6% doing so in person, 55.6% via messaging e.g. text, iMessage, Whatsapp and 33.3% with social media e.g. Facebook, Twitter. 85.2% would discuss TV with friends and 77.8% would discuss it with the same people they watched with.

Baby Boomers: 9.1% frequently discuss TV programmes with other people, with 90.9% doing so in person, 18.2% via messaging e.g. text, iMessage, Whatsapp and 18.2% with social media e.g. Facebook, Twitter. 72.7% would discuss TV with family and 45.5% would discuss it with the same people they watched with.

Some connection to social media could benefit users, but we feel that it is not a key part of our concept. For example, being able to view your friends viewing history could be beneficial, as it gives recommendation influence and discussion points. However, this could potentially be an unwanted feature though as it breaches some privacy issues. Because our research showed us that most TV discussion takes place in person with family or with co-viewers, it caused us to remove this concept from our solution to the brief.

Internet of Things & Proactive Experiences

The brief questions what the future of customised, omni-channel, multi-screen entertainment experience will be. There are a couple of suggestions, such as "Using your wearable tech to input your mood and filtering content whist simultaneously upgrading your package". We could potentially create a solution that implements a smart watch or a wristband that monitors the user, the brief mentioned "mood brighteners". This leads to an opportunity to take an Internet of Things approach, where all manner of things have internet connectivity, being able to send and receive data 24/7. This could be used to anticipate the user's needs before they are needed. The Sky TV could know what to record, what you want to watch when you come in from work or when you want to watch certain programmes based on your mood that is monitored by a sort of smart bracelet.

In discussing how to deliver the best customer experience, the four Ps are often referenced: pain-free, personalized, productive, and proactive. Proactive experiences are fast becoming a standard feature in customer experiences. A proactive experience occurs when information is given to the user before the user asks for it, anticipating your next moves. In terms of the sky brief, this could be applied within our design solution with information about actors, TV programme recommendations or reminders are created and given to the user before they request them e.g. you could be watching a programme and for the first time and your Sky app creates a reminder for the next episode. Sky could notify users about things that are important to them before they are even aware of the issue. Proactive experiences can save time and are a key component to a personalised experience that builds loyalty.

There is however a risk that notifications could become annoying and a negative rather than providing value for a customer; so this would have to be balanced. If Sky becomes an Automated system, it could reduce the likelihood that a customer will call up wondering what’s going on.Sky could use proactive experiences to make the users feel valued and make them feel that they have individual recognition, building a closer relationship with the brand. It would also increase engagement with the brand.

Ref: 1

Features

These are the features that we should aim to incorporate into our design:

• TV Watching

• Set Up

• Account Management 
• Pay Bill
• Update Details
• Upgrade/Downgrade Package
• Account Settings
• Marketing Settings
• Preferences

• Extras e.g. Sky WiFi, Sky+ and Sky Go

• Social Conversations

• Help and Support

Additional features we want to implement are catch up TV, TV recommendations and individual profiles for family members. Some methods that we can implement to create recommendations for users are:

• Asking a user to rate an item on a sliding scale.

• Asking a user to search.

• Asking a user to rank a collection of items from favorite to least favorite.

• Presenting two items to a user and asking him/her to choose the better one of them.

• Asking a user to create a list of items that he/she likes.