The Weather Channel Lean UX Case Study

transcript

The Weather Channel Lean UX Case Study: Travel Weather

Presented by Jeff Hutkoff, The Weather Channel

Aaron Sanders, Comakers

Who are we?

Jeff Hutkoff, Ph.C. iPhone and Android phone apps product

owner – The Weather Channel #7 downloaded iTunes app of all time #1 weather app Tens of millions of downloads Top 100 daily ranked iTunes Free app

Agile since September 17, 2012 Co-located teams Complete P&L responsibility Lean UX and rapid prototyping

Mandate: Build products users love Go faster than waterfall allowed

Aaron Sanders :: @aremsan

Co-founder of Comakers, LLC :: @comakewithus

We know how great it feels to make kick-ass products with our friends. You should, too.

www.comakewith.us :: youshould@comakewith.us

Our job in software is to change the world

Discovery

release cycle

development cycle

Validated learning happens in discovery- discovery wraps delivery

Delivery

Discovery looks a lot like Design Thinking

Product Owners must balance lots of concerns

The Product Owner is a leader

PO does not capture requirementsPO is not a “spec monkey”PO is not a project manager

Product owners lead a team

Together the team: Works with

stakeholders Learns from

customers and users

Collaborates with delivery team members

Creates a product backlog

Designs, validates, and describes the details of the product

Discovery work fuels development work

Backlog items are continuously and collaboratively designed and defined

Getting software into users’ hands is the real goal

Everything at once

Travel Weather

Pre-discovery• Commitments• Hypotheses

Design/Development• Prototype Testing• Results• User Testing

UI/UX OptimizationTravel Product Backlog

Discovery• Discovery • Hypothesis• Results• MVP• Use Cases

Pre-Discovery

Commitments

• Sales wanted a “business traveler tool”

• Ad sponsorship sold to client across TV, web, and mobile in Dec 2012

• June 1 committed start date for mobile platforms (iPhone, iPad, Android)

Sponsorship was secured well before product discovery could be conducted by the newly formed agile teams

Early Discovery

Contracted 3rd party testing service to ask general questions about TWC users’ business travel needs:

• What business travel means to you?

• What mobile tools you use to prepare for business travel?

• When you use your iPhone for travel?

• How often would you use iPhone travel tools?

• What weather conditions do you care about when traveling?

No TWC product person talked to actual customers…but we snuck

in some questions to test a theory

Early Discovery

Business Traveler ResultsThe concept of “Business Traveler” is confusing: • "I travel for recreation. Can I use this too? What if I commute across town?

Can I use this for that purpose?"

• Even business travelers were confused, Why should I use these tools rather than going to my airline's flight tracker?

• “Commute Weather” as a feature tested very well (road conditions, delays and how weather affecting) vs. airplane travel.

• Also, while "Business Traveler" was confusing, users suggested “Travel Weather” as both improving clarity and driving interest in the feature toolset.

Early Discovery

NEW Narrowed Focus:

• Users on the go with their iPhones are more interested in the weather moving across well known, well used driving routes, rather than one-time airplane journeys

• By focusing on re-usable route information and showcasing weather across these routes rather than air travel information, we can address user needs for adjusting and preparing for their daily travels

• We can engage users in a Travel section as a daily habit by providing a tool to plan and adjust the timing of their daily trips

Now we started talking to actual customers

Weekly User Testing

In the field and in the lab…

Focused Early Discovery (2 sprints)

Finding:Users named more than 2 dozen capabilities they wanted in this feature. But there was a core experience that shined through…

Early Discovery - We showed users lo-fi sketch concepts… all for driving route products.

Mid-Discovery (multiple rounds cont.)

Mid Discovery

What we discovered:

Tool set up and usage are the same but use case falls into 2 categories

> Daily usage:1. Commuting >10 miles 2. Local highway driving3. Longer non-highway drives4. Timing departures5. Informational – traffic impacts

6x per year road trips:1. No commute, or 2. Commute short-distance 3. “No freeway” commutes4. Same commute every day5. Pre-planned out of area

trips every other month

Key Finding: Super-serving the daily driver served 80% of the 6x per year customer

Evolving to Minimum Marketable Product

Weather on routeRadar animation

Weather on routeRadar animationTraffic layer

Weather on routeRadar animationTraffic layerTurn x turn directions

Weather on routeRadar animationTraffic layerTurn x turn directionsPoints of interest

Weather on routeTraffic layerTurn x turn directionsPoints of interestPush alertsAlternate route suggestionsReport/rate your commuteTime your commute with historical trendsRadio/audio traffic reports% of users affected by weather in your areaDrag your own route on map

Discovery 1st round

2nd round

3rd round 4th

roundFinal

MMP Evolution PathwayUsers want us to keep Travel simple for them to quickly use on the go

Successive rounds of user testing distilled the travel experience to a core set of features valuable to daily users and buildable to hit the hard date of June 1

Mid-Discovery (multiple rounds)

Mid-Discovery (User testing at User Insights with Balsamiq tool)

Users walked us through how they would use travel tools:

• Accessing the tool• Adding a route• Adding start and end points• Selecting from route choices• Naming a route• Saving a route

• Confirming route saved• Recalling a saved route• Moving around saved route map• Animating the weather map• Editing/deleting a saved route• Recalling a saved route from a list• Closing the tool

Prototype using FieldTest clickable mock

Prototype Testing (3 sprints to deadline)• Pull down tab on Maps page• Add/Delete functionality• Routing setup and recall

UI/UX Optimization using clickable mock

Iterative improvements to the Travel feature pre-5.4 release included:• Add simple tutorial to draw attention to Travel• Icon-focused button to access Travel• Modulate opacity to keep more of map visible at all times• Color palate match between Travel button, Play button and Expand button• Collapse route set up screens

Final Refinement – and Release!

Iterative touch ups prior to launch:• Vertical alignment of animation control buttons• Added Stop and Clear Route buttons• Thickened and darkened line representing route

Lessons Learned • Use all available prototyping tools but start with paper

• Regiment user testing to fail fast and recover

• Focus team on 1 project at a time

• Do less, iterate more

• Time box activities

• “I think” vs. “users say”

The Weather Channel Lean UX Case Study

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