BritBox: UK acquisition and account

Context

BritBox, a subscription service for British television and film, was already running in the US. For the UK, ITV and the BBC wanted a new experience on AXIS, Massive’s own video platform, built from out-of-the-box AXIS modules with minimal customisation.

The work ran over two sprints, from 16 January to 1 February 2019, and ITV and Massive’s product team reviewed it every week. I came to it from the WWE Network and Univision specifications, also built on AXIS.

Mapping user levels

The project’s Alpha IA mapped the pages of the service to AXIS templates and tagged the areas that needed tailoring, sign-up among them for the Alpha’s walled garden. Sign-in was expected to stay mostly out of the box.

I set out three user levels in the acquisition summary. L1 users were not signed in, L2 users had an account without a subscription, and only L3 subscribers could browse or watch.

On the web, an L1 user arriving on the home page met a landing page where the only actions were sign-up and sign-in. A direct link to a title opened a detail landing like Netflix’s, with the synopsis and a trailer where there was one, and going any further meant signing up or signing in. L2 users met the same pages asking them to finish sign-up. In the app, L1 users always started at sign-in and L2 users at the subscribe step.

01Acquisition

Documenting the journeys as modules

I documented acquisition in Axure, in three layers, and gave every page a three- or four-letter code, such as SIFL 01 for the clear sign-in page. Diagrams showed the journeys and modules of sign-up and sign-in from above. Each module held the detail of its screens, error states and exceptions included, and marked its entry and exit points IN and OUT to match the diagrams. A user journeys page laid out the happy paths in full for stakeholder reviews.

In the sign-up diagram, five journeys met at two modules, sign-up (SUFL) and subscribe (SBFL). L1 users joined from the web landing page, the sign-in screen or an email lead, and L2 users finished sign-up from the web landing page or on opening the iOS app. Journeys from a landing page saved the entry point, and after subscribing, an L3 user went back to it, or to the home page when none was saved.

Sign-up asked for an email and a password of at least six characters, with the marketing opt-in and the privacy waiver below them. The module covered the form’s states, from an inline tip when it was sent incomplete to the inline errors for an email already registered and for a failed request. On iOS, the create-account button stayed disabled until both fields were valid, and a format error came as a system alert.

Specifying the trial and payment

The subscribe module first checked whether the customer had already had the seven-day free trial. New customers were offered the trial, and customers who had used it went straight to the monthly price. In the Alpha, the trial was capped by email address.

Both intros carried a reminder of the signed-in user, with a “Not you?” link to sign out, and a recap of the plan. The consent box for ITV’s terms and privacy policy was unticked by default, with the waiver on withdrawal and refunds below it. Web users then added a card, and iOS users paid through the App Store purchase sheet. Both paths ended on a welcome screen.

02Self-serve

Signing in and resetting a password

Sign-in on the web had Remember me ticked by default, and unticking it limited the session to three hours. On iOS there was no Remember me, the sign-in button stayed disabled until both fields were valid, and format errors came in a system alert, as in sign-up. After sign-in, L3 users went to their saved entry point or the home page, and L2 users went into the subscribe module.

Password reset crossed three environments: the reset form in the browser or the app, the reset email in the mail client, and the new-password form in the browser, which on a phone might open in a web view inside the mail app. Sign-out cleared the session and sent web users to the unentitled landing page and app users back to sign-in.

Lead generation and the account page

The lead generation page collected email addresses for news of the service. It sat outside AXIS, and the spec noted that the UI design would override its UX documentation. Sending needed a valid email and consent to marketing, each with its own error tip, and a third-party cookie consent came first.

The account page used the AXIS templates as they stood, with a greeting, the watchlist, My List and recommended shows, and recommendations alone as the empty state.

Holding the Alpha to out-of-the-box modules

03Handover

Handing over to the UI team

The form and lead generation guidelines in the UX spec followed the documented AXIS breakpoints, and both said the UI team’s final guidelines would override them. The UI team’s exports of 1 February carry the module screens’ names, Clear Reset Form and Subscription Intro among them. The subscription intro keeps every numbered element of its module, and in the style guide the user reminder and the plan recap have a component of their own, the subscription boxes.

What waited for Beta, and what was handed over

Names at sign-up were outside the Alpha’s scope, and parental lock and profiles were expected to need some customisation of AXIS.

Outcome

I handed the journeys over at the end of the second sprint, and the UI team’s final screens of 1 February follow them.