Corus Membership Account

Tracking user advertisement information for GlobalTV and Global News

Prioritizing and managing design of basic account flows through UX Strategy and Product Management.

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Advertisement data? Why all the tracking?

With the rise and change of user data rights, browsing data from sites such as Google and Facebook no longer provide Corus with personal identifying in-browser information. This hinders the advertising and marketing team within Corus to sell high value ad space to target specific user groups and demographics.

This led to need to link personal identifying and demographic data along with in app browsing data through a new membership account across all its brands. GlobalTV and Global News was selected as the first pilot of the membership account.

  • Loss of valuable demographic browsing data linked to in-app browsing activity
  • Hindering advertising initiatives and ability to sell targeted ads
  • New cross platform account to link personal identifying attributes with in-app browsing data

What does this account need to do?

With the membership account being the main backend account for various Corus products, several restrictions and key points had to be taken into account.

Itegrate into existing cross device platforms

  • Take into account of two different brands each with different personas
  • Allow access and integration from Smart TVs, Mobile, Web, and Tablet
  • Consolidate common account fields and settings along with many within minimal overlap

Have key pathways and strategies for each entry

  • All entry points and where users would access the membership account had to be considered and evaluated
  • Initial launch strategy was not to gate video watching until later
  • Integrate into existing websites and applications with different design specifications and styling

Educate users on how their data was being used

  • Even though users trusted Corus to manage their data, they wanted to know what it was being used for
  • Gaining user trust and nudging for profile completion was a key goal
  • Account deletion had to be easily accessed, without any hidden process

Working with unclear milestones and next steps

When I joined into the project, existing research and workshops were already conducted with low-fidelity wireframes completed. However, it was unclear what the next steps including critical milestones were. That became my top priority to first determine. The following are the key steps within my process to get the membership project on track and ready for development.

Step 1

Creating a unified data collection strategy

Ensure all data fields were already reviewed and confirmed with the right collection strategy

  • Existing data fields were pending confirmation
  • Documented collection rationales for every field and parking lot additonal fields that were requested

Step 2

What did we really need for MVP?

Clarify scope, priority, and alignment of key features needed

  • Develop all needed user stories for MVP
  • Confirmation and alignment for MVP scope
  • Prioritized 3 flows for usability testing based on risk
  • Gender flow, Changing Email flow, and Delete Account

Step 3

How do users access membership?

  • Evaluate different needs of existing users and brand new users - migration vs onboarding education
  • Stategies for SmartTV vs Mobile app strategies

Step 4

Why should someone sign up?

With GlobalTV and Global News having different functionalities, identifying the right key value proposition for user adoption was critical

Iterations post usability test

Key learnings from usability testing 6 different users remotely from participants selected from Usertesting.com who have experience using with video streaming platform.

Finding 1

Common flows reduce usability challenges

Sign up and password setup flows provided no challenge with well known patterns

Finding 2

Abrupt status changes Needs to be clear

Two testers became slightly confused as to next steps when the sign up flow ended abruptly

Finding 3

Users immediately respond to system prompts

Almost all users immediately wanted to exit the prototype to check for the confirmation email

Change 1

Tackling abrupt flow handoffs

During testing, two testers were confused even after the account sign up task was completed, they had felt like something was missing and as a result started to click randomly. This is when I realized that by not having a proper end of flow success or handoff before showing the profile page, users thought that the flow wasn't completed yet.

The path to selecting toasts over modals

Both modals and toasts were evaluated as potential options. Modals provided an opportunity to create a onboarding flow to educate users more about when the new account ties into Corus branding and what it's used for. However, with minimal features to show for onboarding and considering the intrusive experience for users, the toast option was presented and selected. This was critical for ensuring users went back to video watching instead of exploring their membership account,

Change 2

Hierarchy of notifications

With the increasing complexity of different notification types on screen, I realized that a strategy for managing the hierarchy within the page needed to be done.

I decided to create a centralized top section and forgo my original design focused on proximity and nesting within each section. This allowed users to scan the page with ease and can resolve profile issues at a glance while reducing information overload.

Change 3

Future proofing designs through mobile first thinking

The original vertical layout when I joined the project worked, but when it came to designing for mobile, 2 tabs became the maximum limit without exceeding the width of the screen. This meant that with the current vertical layout, brand adoption leading to feature increases and growth of the membership product would become limited. As a result, I proposed and migrated the design to a side menu type design which could later be hidden has a hamburger menu in mobile. This also allowed me to relocated terms and conditions and additional sign out functionality for easier access.

Final Designs

Overall Account design

Side Navigation Profile Page

Leverage existing design systems to allow developers to bootstrap and code up solutions quickly no matter the selected backend vendor.

User Control of Data

Tackling the collection of sensitive data - Gender

Providing open text and options for users to "opt out" of providing data.

Handoff between smartTV to mobile login

Smart QR Code handoff flow

Smart QR code to increase ease of login and sign up without fiddling with smartTV onscreen keyboards

Different strategies for different devices

When to use modals vs new browser tabs

A critical part of the project was handling different behaviours in different devices. It was then determined that there would be 3 main ways of entry into the account page - on screen modal, new browser tab, smart QR code.

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