Screenshots from
different devices
VOD Service Walkthroughs
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Now TV, Roku - February 2018
Tested on Roku in February 2018; Benchmark score: 25/45 -
Vevo, Now TV - February 2018
Tested on Now TV Smart Box in February 2018; Benchmark score: 20/45 -
UKTV Play, iPad (iOS 11.2.2) - February 2018
Tested on iPad (iOS 11.2.2) in February 2018; Benchmark score: 24/45 -
Red Bull TV, Roku - February 2018
Tested on Roku in February 2018; Benchmark score: 17/45 -
My5, Roku - February 2018
Tested on Roku in February 2018; Benchmark score: 14/45 -
Google Play, Roku - February 2018
Tested on Roku in February 2018; Benchmark score: 13/45 -
ITV Hub, Roku - January 2018
Tested on Roku Now TV Smart Box in January 2018; Benchmark score: 12/45 -
All 4, Roku - January 2018
Tested on Roku Now TV Smart Box in January 2018; Benchmark score: 24/45 -
Netflix, Roku - January 2018
Tested on Roku in January 2018; Benchmark score: 25/45 -
BBC iPlayer, Apple TV - January 2018
Tested on Apple TV in January 2018; Benchmark score: 20/45 -
BBC iPlayer Kids, iPad (iOS 10.3.1) - July 2017
Tested on iPad (iOS 10.3.1) in July 2017; Benchmark score: 23/45 -
ITV Hub, Android (Sony Xperia X) - September 2017
Tested on Android Phone (Sony Xperia X) in September 2017; Benchmark score: 24/45 -
All 4, Web (Google Chrome) - September 2017
Tested on Web (Google Chrome) in September 2017; Benchmark score: 33/45 -
Red Bull TV, iPad (iOS 10.3.1) - July 2017
Tested on iPad (iOS 10.3.1) in July 2017; Benchmark score: 21/45 -
DisneyLife, Web (Google Chrome) - July 2017
Tested on Web (Google Chrome) in July 2017; Benchmark score: 30/45
Comparing Features in VOD Services
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Video Players in VOD Services - June 2017
Research used in the video - Ericsson TV and Media 2016 - Figure 11; Percentage of consumers performing other activities (browsing, social, multiple programs) on second screen, while watching TV, on a weekly basis; We’ve looked at five VOD services on three different platforms: #1. Amazon Prime Video - web; #2. Netflix - web; #3. BBC iPlayer - Android phone; #4. Eurosport Player - web; #5. BT Sport - iPad. -
Motion and Animation in VOD Services - June 2017
Research used in the video - TiVo Q4 2016 Video Trends Report - Pages 16, 22, 35; We’ve looked at five VOD services on three different platforms: #1. Red Bull TV - web; #2. 6Play - web; #3. ITV Hub - Android phone; #4. AOL On - iPad; #5. Hopster - iPad. -
Search Functionality in VOD Services - June 2017
Research - VOD Professional & Rovi (now TiVo) Whitepaper, Statistics from VUIX Library, TiVo - Millennials & TV: Big Appetites, Little Patience; We’ve identified 7 flavours of search and looked at ten VOD services on three different platforms: #1. Basic search with a results page - All4 (web), BBC iPlayer (web); #2. Predictive search - STV Player (web), NRK TV (web), SVT Play (web); #3. Rich search containing video metadata - Netflix (web); #4. Filtering and advanced search options - Amazon Prime Video (web); #5. Recommended search - TED (Android tablet), UKTV Play (web); #6. Surprise me - TED (Android tablet); #7. Voice control search - Siri to search iTunes (iPad).
Our VUIX 2017 Conference
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Cyrus Saihan, Head of Digital Partnerships, BBC
Innovation and the Future of TV: Smartphones, tablets, connected TVs and services such as YouTube aren’t even in their teen years but have already had a huge impact on the TV industry. But what will the next set of transformational technologies be? This talk takes a look at a few new technologies on the horizon that have the potential to impact the TV experience and looks at some of the ways that the BBC has been working with the industry to experiment with new audience experiences. -
Chloe Davies, Head of Product, Freesat - Live and Kicking - TV Viewing in the OTT Age
The linear schedule is dead and no-one’s watching live TV any more, right? Well, not quite, it’s not as simple as that. Freesat’s connected TV platform has real-time tracking and the data suggests that while habits are certainly changing, there’s life in the old dog yet. -
Sarah Milton, All 4 Head of Product, Channel 4
Personalisation, Prioritisation and other Product Management Challenges: All 4’s unique proposition combines a vast catalogue of premium TV boxsets with live broadcast channels, 30 day catch up and a growing collection of exclusive shows, all completely free and available on over 20 different platforms. s. With this offering come some unique - and some not so unique - product challenges. This talk will provide an insight into how Channel 4 approaches those challenges and shares some of the success stories, along with the odd learning opportunity, from over a decade of growth and innovation. -
Kristian Waneck, Head of Development – Streaming, DR - Beyond Catch-up – When VOD Steps out the shadow of linear TV
As viewers – especially younger audiences – turn their backs on linear TV, DR is repositioning DRTV from being a catch up service to a destination in its own right, targeting users that missed not just a particular show but DR’s linear channels altogether. DR is relaunching DRTV in 2018 and the ambition is to retain its position as the Danes’ most trusted content provider and to become the #1 VOD service in Denmark. This talk gives a sneak peek into the new concept and UI and addresses the technological challenges DR faces in realizing its vision for the new DRTV. -
Christoffer Kittel, Creative Director, Viaplay - Creating Moments that Matter
As the VOD industry comes of age and matures, how do services differentiate beyond technical excellence? How can brands align around a big vision, find their identity and competitive edge? By focusing on brand position and a principles framework, Viaplay is on a journey to define itself and build for the future. Christoffer Kittel, creative director, will share this journey of evolving as a service and organisation, from being a "provider of content" to becoming a "creator of moments that matter". -
Ashley Grossman, Senior Manager Video Discovery & Personalisation, Liberty Global - Confessions of a Professional Couch Potato
Liberty Global is the world's largest TV and Broadband company with over 25 million customers in 30+ countries. This talk will follow its journey of developing an ambitious new TV experience for a diverse audience in a rapidly evolving industry landscape where exciting new features like voice and personalisation vie for the attention of very traditional TV viewers. -
Ida Olsen, UXD Consultant, Sony - What can we still Learn from Broadcast Television?
The enduring allure of TV and video is the emotional connection people have with the content. Ida Olsen, formerly of Channel 4 and the BBC, and now working for Sony Crackle, asks what VOD services can learn from some of the areas in which traditional TV has been successful. Her talk encompasses: linear/ simulcast; content augmentation with AR / VR; serendipity and channel-hopping; continuity in terms of tone and presentation; channel brand identity and the remote control. -
Charles Dawes, Senior Director of International Marketing, TiVo - Talking Television – How are Consumers Changing the Conversation?
Voice is fast becoming a must-have part of any video discovery experience and TiVo has been at the forefront of this user experience revolution. Analysing data from 10 months of interactions across in-market deployments, TiVo will share unique insights into how real users are embracing voice technology. From the frequency of searches to the kinds of queries received, TiVo will reveal its learnings around this new technology. -
Steve Forde, Director of Online Product and Marketing, ITV
Viewer Relationships… Not Data Strategies: ITV is enhancing the direct connection it now has with its viewers - through its digital and real world experiences - into a mutually beneficial relationship. It views data as the enabler and by-product, but the viewer relationship is the focus. Data is cold and transactional. Relationships engage on an emotional level. Steve Forde will talk through ITV’s Viewer Relationship Strategy; how it is currently benefiting the broadcaster and what the future might look like… for Hub, Hub+, Marketing, Research, Marketing and the rest of the business. -
William Cooper, Founder and Chief Executive, informitv - Introducing the Mercury Viewer Experience created with LUNA
The Mercury concept was developed to present a video user interface that combines smart channels and playlists to create a custom viewing experience. This blends the best of traditional television with the benefits of video-on-demand. It was created using the LUNA cross-platform video experience engine, which allows interfaces to be developed in JavaScript but delivers performance usually associated with native compiled applications, without the limitations of a web browser. -
Allen Dickson, VP of EMEA Media, Brightcove - Transforming the Experiences and Economics of Online Video
The current economics of online video publishing are too complex and inflexible for many media companies to thrive, as more and more of the revenue and profit potential is concentrated in a small number of dominant organisations. Allen Dickson will discuss how media businesses need to improve the user experience, reduce operational costs and increase revenue potential to enable them to flourish in the future.
Our VUIX 2016 Conference
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Cathie Toshach, UX Director, Experience Design, HBO – The Evolution of HBO’s Digital Product Experience Design
The past several years have seen phenomenal growth of HBO’s digital streaming platforms, across both TV Everywhere and Over-the-Top offerings (HBO GO and HBO NOW). Meeting the rapidly changing needs of our audiences and partners has required an evolution across several fronts, including toolsets, processes, communications, and design principles – all within a quickly maturing Digital Products division. As we grow as a team, and advance the features and UX of our HBO platforms, we continue to question, evaluate, and fine-tune our approaches – hopefully for the better. Join us as we explore these challenges and learnings through the lens of HBO Experience Design. -
Bjarne Myklebust, Head of Distribution, NRK – When will OTT Overtake Linear?
Over the past 18 months, Norway’s public service broadcaster, NRK, has been analysing the TV viewing behaviour of its 350,000+ unique daily users across various platforms and devices. In this speech, Bjarne Myklebust, the company’s Head of Distribution (and a two-time #1 in 50 VOD Professionals Nordic!) presents data from those studies, tells us that linear and OTT viewing have almost reached parity across some user segments and explains how, in turn, NRK has adjusted its product development strategy accordingly. -
Ryan Wilkerson, VP Experience Design, HBO – The Agony and the Ecstasy of Virtual Reality: HBO Explores the UX of VR
In Ryan Wilkerson's own words: Virtual Reality (and its AR/MR cousins) are poised to not only revolutionize content platforms but also expand the opportunities for storytellers in ways that we can hardly yet fathom. The popular adoption of this nascent medium poses an exciting set of challenges to the UX designer not least of which is how we develop compelling, natural experiences and interfaces that make use of dimensional space while acknowledging foundational UX principles. Along the way, we develop new processes, languages, and principles to expand this platform. The HBO Experience Design team has spent the better part of two years exploring the ups and downs, backs and forths of this world, fighting back the occasional motion sickness in an effort to thoughtfully embrace VR. This presentation offers a peek inside these explorations, with a focus on the toolsets and philosophies that guide the UX Design and development of HBO GO and HBO NOW on both traditional and virtual platforms. -
Gulliver Smithers, SVP Product & Technology, Sony Crackle – Creating the Always-On Consumer Experience
The Sony Crackle AVOD service is currently published in three languages, across twenty countries and is available on twenty eight devices. The service has been live since 2007 but in recent years the Crackle product team recognized that consumer consumption patterns had shifted dramatically. The response was to undertake a major overhaul to the Crackle consumer experience. The underlying hypothesis was that viewers, especially those watching on larger screens, valued the serendipity of live TV and would engage more with an experience which was able to provide the best of both the linear and on-demand worlds. One year on from its initial deployment, Gulliver Smithers, the SVP for Product & Technology at Crackle, talks about the philosophy behind the "Always On" user experience and offers some insight into the successes and challenges of introducing a whole new way of presenting on-demand content for users. -
Paul Kanareck, Group Director of Online, ITV – OTT Product Development: Drivers and Decision-Making
One year on from the launch of ITV Hub, Paul Kanareck, ITV’s Group Director of Online, evaluates some of the key creative and commercial choices faced by broadcasters and OTT service-providers when it comes to product development: how much experimentation is possible when testing new products and price models? Do different content types play better on different devices? And what VOD-related decisions will ITV itself be making over the next few years? -
Christoffer Kittel, Creative Director, Viaplay – How Viaplay Built Their Cross Platform Olympic Experience
18 days, 38 different sports and 1816 events - The UX team at Viaplay had a daunting task in building a consistent, simple and elegant user experience for the Olympics in Rio. Creative Director Christoffer Kittel will talk about their design process and how to account for a branded cross-platform experience in the complex world of live sports. -
Oliver Davies, Head of Digital Products, UKTV – Notes from the VOD Frontline
Oliver Davies, UKTV’s Head of Digital Products, takes a look at the evolution of the broadcaster's video-on-demand services. From Dave OD in 2011 to today’s award-nominated UKTV Play, it has taken a reinvention of the team along the way to achieve the product's current strong position. Davies and his colleagues have encountered branding head-scratchers, navigation challenges and some grand adventures in DRM in their unswerving quest for the perfect user experience! -
Miki Chojnacka, Chief Creative and Design Officer, Hopster – Re-Thinking the TV for Little Fingers
The future of TV is apps. But while kids are huge users of both apps and TV, VOD on TV hasn't always been an easy experience for younger kids. Although a lot of players in the on-demand space now offer kids service, many designs were simply retrofitted to experiences built for grown ups. The team at kids-specialist platform Hopster took a different approach, rethinking every aspect of on demand for kids from a child's perspective. Miki Chojnacka, Hopster's Chief Design & Creative Officer, talks about fusing content, design and technology to build a new type of TV experience for a new generation of users. -
Luke Gaydon, VP OTT Solutions, Brightcove – Video-on-Demand: Is It Getting Any Easier?
10 years on from the launch of BBC iPlayer & Channel 4's 4oD, Luke Gaydon of Brightcove takes a look at the current VOD landscape and asks the question; "Have the technical innovations of the last decade made life easier for content owners looking to deliver premium on-demand services?" And if not, why not? -
James Jackson, Technology Director, Digital UK – On-Demand for Everyone
James Jackson explains how the UK’s biggest TV service is opening catch-up and on-demand to new audiences, helping tackle digital divides and setting new standards for connected TV. Freeview Play delivers free access to VOD services from the UK’s leading broadcasters through a growing range of TVs and set-top-boxes. Building on international standards, Freeview Play adds enhanced metadata functionality to enable the easy discovery of content and applications. As the first service worldwide to adopt HbbTV 2.0, content providers are able to deliver increasingly sophisticated content and advertising experiences to consumers while avoiding the costs and complexity of proprietary platform development. Developed in partnership with public service broadcasters, TV manufacturers and wider industry bodies, Freeview Play is on track to become standard functionality in the vast majority new TVs and set-top-boxes, expanding the reach of connected TV to the widest possible audience. -
Charles Dawes, Senior Director of International Marketing, TiVo – Trading Up … Sharing our Journey to Update the TiVo Experience
Since 1999 TiVo has been leading the world in user experience solutions for digital video recorders. In this session, Charles Dawes will share insights from the company in how they developed their latest generation of the iconic TiVo UX for a new set of customer requirements that extend to other devices (including OTT) and new user behaviours like binge watching. He’ll also tell us how the team at TiVo has built upon new discovery technologies which allows them to accurately predict what your viewers are most likely to watch, increase the breadth of their content consumption and give them the opportunity to trade up to something better when previously they might have said “there’s nothing on TV for me…” -
James Grant, Director, Partner Management & Four Fronts & Miruna Dogaru,Advisory Services Lead, FreeWheel – Using UEX Insights to Build a Video Ad Monetisation Strategy
In our anytime, anywhere TV environment the audience is everywhere and hugely diversified. Understanding which shows are being watched on which screen and by whom is, of course, essential for publishers as this is what drives the value of ad space. Some of the leading players, however, have started taking their advertising UX strategy a step further by offering differentiated experiences (and even content) to viewers. The idea is that some audiences have different sensitivity to advertising than others, and that optimizing against each enables greater engagement and therefore greater monetization. During this session, James Grant of Freewheel will explore these important parameters and discuss how, together, we can improve the ad experiences and performances. -
Doug Clark, Cloud Video Solutions Leader, IBM – Building a Cognitive Video Platform
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Adam Nightingale, VP EMEA, Accedo – VOD the Teenager
Online video is now well into its second decade of life and broadcasters, operators and service-providers have gone from being proud new parents, giving their products all the TLC in the world, to uncertain guardians of fragmented, diversified teenage rebels who are keen to take on as many multiplatform experiences as possible! Ok, that might be stretching the metaphor a little, but in this session, Adam Nightingale of Accedo examines the benefits of a data-driven UX in 2016 and explains how this can ultimately help in managing maturing multiscreen services.