Insights Unlocked
Creating new campfire moments: how the BBC designs for inclusivity
Mon, 18 Nov 2024
Episode web page ----------------------- 📢📣 NEW REPORT 📣📢 Are you wondering how people really feel about generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT? How are they being used in business? How are they changing productivity? What makes AI chat attractive or unattractive to users? And what does it all mean for a company building AI features? Check out our new global AI benchmark study, including a survey, a user shootout between the four top AI chatbots, and video of AI users sharing how they feel. The study included Australia and Singapore, so you’ll get results that are specific to our part of the world. Get your copy now Generative AI chatbots: overhyped but still underestimated ----------------------- Rate Insights Unlocked and write a review If you appreciate Insights Unlocked, please give it a rating and a review. Visit Apple Podcasts, pull up the Insights Unlocked show page and scroll to the bottom of the screen. Below the trailers, you'll find Ratings and Reviews. Click on a star rating. Scroll down past the highlighted review and click on "Write a Review." You'll make my day. ----------------------- Show Notes In this episode of Insights Unlocked, UserTesting’s Blair Fraser dives into a fascinating discussion with Emma Whitby and Aleks Gojkovic from the BBC's User Experience and Design (UX&D) team. Emma and Aleks share insights from their work on a project designed to help one of the BBC’s most valued audiences—retirees—transition from traditional broadcast services to digital platforms. They reveal how combining empathy-driven UX research with big data insights has led to a deeper understanding of this generation's unique challenges and needs, and discuss the innovative storytelling and design approaches that help build inclusive, accessible digital experiences. Key Themes Discussed: Designing with empathy for retirees in a digital world Emma and Aleks share how they approached researching a user group that has long relied on broadcast services. Through community interactions and storytelling, they uncovered the daily reliance this audience places on TV and radio for structure, connection, and companionship. Emma and Aleks reveal how this research influenced their approach to human-centered design for a traditionally underserved audience. The power of storytelling in UX research UX research at the BBC goes beyond data points—Emma and Aleks highlight the importance of empathy and storytelling to convey user needs. They explain how using narrative alongside data helped them capture the attention of stakeholders and build emotional connections, transforming research findings into actionable insights. Using big data to drive strategic decisions Aleks discusses the role of big data in understanding and validating the significance of retirees as a core BBC audience. By blending quantitative data with qualitative insights, the UX&D team was able to highlight business opportunities and challenge common biases, underscoring how inclusive design can drive both user satisfaction and business success. Innovative collaboration with the BBC’s Blue Room Learn how the UX&D team partnered with the BBC’s Blue Room, a tech demo lab, to bring their insights to life through 3D digital recreations of retirees' living spaces. These interactive exhibits provide stakeholders with a firsthand look at the accessibility challenges retirees face, sparking innovation in designing user-friendly digital services. Shaping the future of inclusive design at scale Emma and Aleks discuss the ongoing impact of their project across the BBC, which has inspired collaboration and changes in product strategies. They share how, by focusing on retirees’ needs, they are challenging assumptions and advancing inclusive design practices that resonate with diverse audiences. Episode Links: BBC’s Global Experience Language (GEL) BBC What is UX&D? BBC UX&D on LinkedIn Aleks Gojkovic on LinkedIn Blair Fraser on LinkedIn
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Welcome back to the Insights Unlocked podcast. In this episode, we're diving into an inspiring story of digital inclusivity with guests Emma Wippe and Alex Gokovic from the BBC's User Experience and Design team. They'll be sharing how they are bridging the digital divide for retirees, bringing empathy to the forefront of design, and crafting digital experiences that truly serve everyone.
Enjoy the show.
Welcome to Insights Unlocked, an original podcast from User Testing, where we bring you candid conversations and stories with the thinkers, doers and builders behind some of the most successful digital products and experiences in the world, from concept to execution.
Welcome to the Insights Unlocked podcast. I'm Nathan Isaacs, senior manager for content production and user testing. And joining us today as host is UserTesting's Blair Frazier, a staff product designer here at UserTesting and based in our Edinburgh office. Welcome to the show, Blair. Hey, everyone. Good to be here.
And we have two guests joining us today, Alex Gokovic and Emma Whippy from the BBC's UX&D team. Alex is a senior designer researcher and Emma Whippy is a design researcher, both on the UX&D teams. Welcome to the show, Alex and Emma.
Hey. Thanks so much for having us.
Emma, Alex, I'm super excited to talk to you both today. So welcome. And as we get started, I would love for you to tell us a bit about your own journeys into UX research and design. Emma, maybe you could go first.
Yeah. So I actually worked in the music and events industry for years and I was looking for something new and I came to the BBC as an assistant to the heads of design. So it was a really amazing opportunity and it meant I was able to get like a real feel for the discipline of UX.
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Chapter 2: How did Emma and Alex get into UX research and design?
And luckily people around me saw my potential and they were actually the ones that inspired me to apply for the role of design researcher. And as you can see, I've never left. But I think, yeah, the reason I've stayed is that I've had the opportunity to work across lots of different products and services here.
And I've been given the opportunity to get out and talk to audiences about so many exciting new projects. I tend to always kind of think about this role as kind of helping our senior leadership team to get to know our users. And to kind of continually remind them just how different our audience base is here at the BBC. Cause you know, we're a public organization, public service organization.
So we really do need to understand our users needs and their motivations and their behaviors. So we can really ensure that we're providing value for all. And I think that's, what's great about working here. You know, our field trips are carried out far and wide and they can be anything from kind of leading co-creation workshops with teenagers in schools.
to visiting people with accessibility needs in their own homes. So, as you can imagine, we really do enjoy working here.
Yeah, that's really cool. That's an interesting journey and a variety of work, it sounds like. So, Alex, how about you?
So I've worked in research for over 15 years now. I started my career with Ipsos. They're a large international market research agency and in the UK they're famous for doing election polls. So I worked in market research for a long time before I joined the BBC and before I made the move into design research.
And it's interesting, actually, because I'm often asked, what is the difference between market research and design research? And I actually find it a really difficult question to answer because there are so many overlaps in our practice. We all talk to our users, collect customer feedback, both qual and quant. We analyze data, deliver insights, et cetera.
And from my experience, it's all about looking at the same challenge through a different lens. where market research often tries to understand the impact on a more of a macro level. Design research tries to bring these challenges to life, appeal to the individual user experience. And this will hopefully be familiar to a lot of your listeners and you will see later on as we talk through our work.
The real magic happens when we work together, when we collaborate and deliver a complete story. And that's when we think we can do really powerful stuff like influence strategic decisions at an organizational level.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do retirees face in transitioning to digital services?
And then also just them being angry that choices were being taken away from them. So they gave so many examples like bank stores and train ticket offices closing in the UK. and then only being able to pay using apps at car parks. And it was just really interesting to hear that it was making many of them feel really excluded from our ever-changing society.
And then the second theme was their challenges moving to digital. So we found for this audience that using digital products and services as they are today isn't easy. You know, many of them have got low digital literacy skills and some don't even own any digital devices. They're just happy to carry on using broadcast services. And then many have got accessibility needs, like we said.
So maybe they've got dexterity impairments, meaning holding a TV remote is difficult. Or maybe they've got memory impairments, meaning remembering passwords to sign in. So all these things suddenly become really difficult. And then the third theme, so this fell under their unmet user needs. So a key theme here was that they missed this campfire experience.
So they were telling us about how having a TV in your home before the 60s was this rare luxury that many families just couldn't afford. And many spoke about having to visit neighbors or the family members' houses to watch it. So for them, TV became the shared social experience. It was this time for friends and families to gather around and watch and enjoy the same content at the same time.
And this is something that they spoke so passionately about. And many of them felt like this move to digital has meant TV and radios become like this individual experience. And they spoke about missing, you know, the water cooler moments. So chatting about something that they've watched or listened to the following day.
And then finally, the most shocking finding was that TV and radio were crucial companions for combating loneliness for this generation. So they were telling us how broadcast TV and radio really helped to shape and provide structure to their day.
So maybe, you know, they woke up at a particular time each day to make sure they can listen to the morning chat shows on the radio, or maybe they're reminded it's lunchtime when the one o'clock news comes on the TV. You know, it really is an integral part of their day.
wow that's like yeah hearing about that it seems like there's a big culture shift over over those decades you know everyone today is heads down in their own devices my household's probably got i don't know 10 20 devices or so and everyone's uh watching in their own space and they're all individuals and that's a big a big cultural shift to to support as well and uh often i think acceleration to digital through digital transformation as well can often leave
a big gap in access as well. You can often design with a lot of biases and leaning and then leave behind many cohorts or groups of individuals who haven't really been thought of. So I have a couple of small follow-up questions on this one, if that's okay. And just wanted to see what you were thinking. So did you learn anything that personally surprised you?
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Chapter 4: How does storytelling enhance UX research?
hugely valuable in society. And it's something we don't really want to lose. As much as we don't want to lose our audiences, we don't want to lose the value that we bring to them with our products and services. And it was just such a lovely, lovely, heartfelt reminder of what the BBC means to people.
Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. So Alex, I think you talked about collaborating with your consumer tech demo lab. You got to tell me more about that. And you talked about how you leveraged in-house spaces to bring your research to life.
Can you like walk us through what did that look like and how did, you know, how it helped connect people with the insights that you were like, you were sort of taking the research?
Sure. So our customer technology demo lab is, like Hema said, is also known as BBC Blue Room. I'm not really sure, but I know there is a story behind that name. They are managed by BBC's R&D department, and there we enable staff to access the latest technology, get their hands on things like connected TVs, smart speakers, mobile phones, gaming consoles, streaming devices.
And the team there give internal and external tours and demos of that technology. But they also like to have such tours grounded in user insights so that understanding of our users is at the forefront when showcasing the latest technology. And as Emma said before, right now we're working with them to create a digital version of a living space that represents our hard to reach audiences.
So our intention is to create these living exhibits and for them to bring to life the technology that our audiences use and pain points and barriers they may face. whilst at the same time highlighting this role of the BBC within their lives. So they're like these 3D versions of people's actual living spaces, of their living rooms, of their kitchens, of their lounges, etc.
Our hope is that these exhibits will help inspire our colleagues when thinking about the technological landscape and the speed at which it's constantly changing. And our ambition is to inspire new ways to unlock more content for more audiences. And for us, it all comes back to understanding our users, their attitudes, behaviors, and needs.
Did you say, was it a physical space or digital space?
They're digital spaces. So the way that we are creating them is that we actually went into physical spaces, took a bunch of images and then rendered them into these like 3D digital versions of people's living spaces.
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