Timeline 2 years
Team size 3-8 designers
Deliverables mobile app, tablet app, OTT
Consultancy Grand Studio
My contributions
Cross-disciplinary stakeholder management
Design direction and oversight
Design process education and definition
Digital product design
Development spec, support and communication
Leadership presentations
Mentorship of designers and interns
Motion design direction, oversight and development
Presentation coordination and support
Project management
Requirements generation and scope definition
SOW negotiations and new project development
Testing and research
Workshop facilitation
Timeline 2 years
Team size 3-8 designers
Deliverables mobile app, tablet app, OTT
Consultancy Grand Studio
My contributions
Cross-disciplinary stakeholder management
Design direction and oversight
Design process education and definition
Digital product design
Development spec, support and communication
Leadership presentations
Mentorship of designers and interns
Motion design direction, oversight and development
Presentation coordination and support
Project management
Requirements generation and scope definition
SOW negotiations and new project development
Testing and research
Workshop facilitation
Timeline 2 years
Team size 3-8 designers
Deliverables mobile app, tablet app, OTT
Consultancy Grand Studio
My contributions
Cross-disciplinary stakeholder management
Design direction and oversight
Design process education and definition
Digital product design
Development spec, support and communication
Leadership presentations
Mentorship of designers and interns
Motion design direction, oversight and development
Presentation coordination and support
Project management
Requirements generation and scope definition
SOW negotiations and new project development
Testing and research
Workshop facilitation
Timeline 2 years
Team size 3-8 designers
Deliverables mobile app, tablet app, OTT
Consultancy Grand Studio
My contributions
Cross-disciplinary stakeholder management
Design direction and oversight
Design process education and definition
Digital product design
Development spec, support and communication
Leadership presentations
Mentorship of designers and interns
Motion design direction, oversight and development
Presentation coordination and support
Project management
Requirements generation and scope definition
SOW negotiations and new project development
Testing and research
Workshop facilitation
Timeline 2 years
Team size 3-8 designers
Deliverables mobile app, tablet app, OTT
Consultancy Grand Studio
My contributions
Cross-disciplinary stakeholder management
Design direction and oversight
Design process education and definition
Digital product design
Development spec, support and communication
Leadership presentations
Mentorship of designers and interns
Motion design direction, oversight and development
Presentation coordination and support
Project management
Requirements generation and scope definition
SOW negotiations and new project development
Testing and research
Workshop facilitation
NBA
The NBA International product group recognized that their app was in desperate need of updating. New business objectives meant an increased focus on the League Pass offering, as well as a need to improve user retention, increase engagement and optimize the product for their international audience. NBA fans are located in 215 countries around the world and need their content translated into 15 languages.
The business requirement was clear: user and design needs must lead technology.
NBA
The NBA International product group recognized that their app was in desperate need of updating. New business objectives meant an increased focus on the League Pass offering, as well as a need to improve user retention, increase engagement and optimize the product for their international audience. NBA fans are located in 168 countries around the world and need their content translated into more than 15 languages.
The business requirement was clear: user and design needs must lead technology.
NBA
The NBA International product group recognized that their app was in desperate need of updating. New business objectives meant an increased focus on the League Pass offering, as well as a need to improve user retention, increase engagement and optimize the product for their international audience. NBA fans are located in 168 countries around the world and need their content translated into more than 15 languages.
The business requirement was clear: user and design needs must lead technology.
NBA
The NBA International product group recognized that their app was in desperate need of updating. New business objectives meant an increased focus on the League Pass offering, as well as a need to improve user retention, increase engagement and optimize the product for their international audience. NBA fans are located in 168 countries around the world and need their content translated into more than 15 languages.
The business requirement was clear: user and design needs must lead technology.
NBA
The NBA International product group recognized that their app was in desperate need of updating. New business objectives meant an increased focus on the League Pass offering, as well as a need to improve user retention, increase engagement and optimize the product for their international audience. NBA fans are located in 168 countries around the world and need their content translated into more than 15 languages.
The business requirement was clear: user and design needs must lead technology.
At the start of every sprint, and especially when negotiating new SOWs, we worked with the International product team to establish scope. We'd leverage analytics data to inform our efforts, workshop with other groups, ask questions about technology considerations and map prioritization back to users and league OKRs / KPIs.
For every design sprint we'd share a soft project plan that could change as needs evolved. As we moved through designs, we'd move out of scope ideas and needs to a maintained backlog that would ultimately inform each new retainer contract. As part of each sprint's documentation we'd hand off an editable document for the analytics team so they'd have a head start on what new tracking methods to implement.
Varying research methods were used throughout our 2 year engagement, and for specific reasons. We coordinated and facilitated internal stakeholder convos, Australian user interviews, diary studies, international surveys, A/B testing, intercept testing in Chicago and on-site usability testing in Mexico.
All of this knowledge allowed us to build out international personas to inform design.
We collaboratively built out multiple user journeys with the NBA in varying fidelities. Low-fi to start at a workshop in Chicago, high-fi based on Australian interviews, and an interactive version that was large format printed for display in the Product team's pod in NBA offices.
The vast majority of our sprints started with sketches. Whether it was with the design team only, or collaboratively done with the NBA.
To take the pressure off of sketching with the client teams, we'd typically give them starter kits to leverage. These kits would include low-fi content, competitor screenshots to cut up, or magazines to cut and paste onto giant devices.
Initial concepts created to share during design reviews would often be in a sketch fidelity. We'd review our ideas with the appropriate groups for feedback and direction-setting, but it Product, Editorial, tech, DTC, or leadership.
When we needed to focus on UX and content logic over UI and visual exploration, we continued to refine concepts in wireframe. Prototypes were also incredibly valuable in communicating our ideas.
During our first engagement with the NBA in July 2018, we explored brand directions for the app to refresh the entire experience.
The directive was that this app should be regarded as the 'point guard of the league', and inspire the improvement of all other digital products.
Through multiple rounds of refinement, our team whittled down and combined feedback to push forward two focused directions.
We tested internally and with users before refining and extending patterns to additional screens. Over two years, 4 platforms, many designers and countless features, our design library constantly evolved.
The Outcome
The Outcome
The Outcome
The Outcome
The Outcome
Starting in February 2019, fans across 215 countries began to see and use all the work we had been doing with the NBA. For the 19-20 season, all of our work across iOS, Android and OTT was launched and feedback began to pour in.
Fans wanted us to keep improving the product and changing more. Personalization curated content on an individual basis for millions of users; recommendation engine enhancements re-surfaced videos deep from the NBA archives for premium users; rich stats and exclusive team access played to the strengths of the league's content.
For the business, our collaboration with the Editorial team gave them fundamental CMS capabilities that they had wanted to implement for years. Promotion of all 30 teams in unique ways pleased each owner. Collaboration with the data and analytics team improved tracking needs for metrics to understand design's impact on NBA fans. And for the first time in a decade, the league's own digital products became recognized in the sports industry.
For the start of the 19-20 season, fans around the world would have a completely new experience curated just for them. Every single fan in 168 countries would be able to have content surfaced according to their individual preferences and settings. A customized experience leveraging automated development efforts and a recommendation engine would take a load off the Editorial team, but still allow the NBA to control their own voice in specific yet scalable parts of the product. Then that voice would show identically across every other platform.
Because of the personalization and Editorial emphasis, new user video engagement increased by 45%. Video starts and watch hours went up, as did user retention and all video consumption across live and VOD. Overall, the iOS version shot up in the App Store with more than 28,000 reviews to almost a 5 star rating.
For the start of the 19-20 season, fans around the world would have a completely new experience curated just for them. Every single fan in 168 countries would be able to have content surfaced according to their individual preferences and settings. A customized experience leveraging automated development efforts and a recommendation engine would take a load off the Editorial team, but still allow the NBA to control their own voice in specific yet scalable parts of the product. Then that voice would show identically across every other platform.
Because of the personalization and Editorial emphasis, new user video engagement increased by 45%. Video starts and watch hours went up, as did user retention and all video consumption across live and VOD. Overall, the iOS version shot up in the App Store with more than 28,000 reviews to almost a 5 star rating.
For the start of the 19-20 season, fans around the world would have a completely new experience curated just for them. Every single fan in 168 countries would be able to have content surfaced according to their individual preferences and settings. A customized experience leveraging automated development efforts and a recommendation engine would take a load off the Editorial team, but still allow the NBA to control their own voice in specific yet scalable parts of the product. Then that voice would show identically across every other platform.
Because of the personalization and Editorial emphasis, new user video engagement increased by 45%. Video starts and watch hours went up, as did user retention and all video consumption across live and VOD. Overall, the iOS version shot up in the App Store with more than 28,000 reviews to almost a 5 star rating.
For the start of the 19-20 season, fans around the world would have a completely new experience curated just for them. Every single fan in 168 countries would be able to have content surfaced according to their individual preferences and settings. A customized experience leveraging automated development efforts and a recommendation engine would take a load off the Editorial team, but still allow the NBA to control their own voice in specific yet scalable parts of the product. Then that voice would show identically across every other platform.
Because of the personalization and Editorial emphasis, new user video engagement increased by 45%. Video starts and watch hours went up, as did user retention and all video consumption across live and VOD. Overall, the iOS version shot up in the App Store with more than 28,000 reviews to almost a 5 star rating.
© 2023 Cassie Matias
© 2023 Cassie Matias
© 2023 Cassie Matias
© 2023 Cassie Matias
© 2023 Cassie Matias
cassiematias@gmail.com
cassiematias@gmail.com
cassiematias@gmail.com
cassiematias@gmail.com