Key Plays is a feature for SLE (Single live event) assets on Peacock that dynamically records clips of highlighted moments during a game and allows users to navigate directly to those clips within the player to either re-watch the big moment or see what they may have missed.
After the implementation of Key Plays, product insights and analytics found that users who engaged with Key Plays loved the feature, however the interaction rate was very low at only 3.4% and of that 3.4%, the majority were users who has previously engaged with the feature.
I was tasked to Increase the interaction rate with Key Plays. Simple enough right? My team already had ideas to update the feature by introducing a button in browse directly to Key Plays, an in game notification that appeared during moments of downtime (like the half) notifications pushed to mobile and even a whole new slick UI but quickly ran into pushback. Leadership needed us to improve the number asap. Low LOE, short timeline, go go go.
Pivoting, we targeted the main entry point for Key Plays called the upfront notification and found that it was severely underperforming
We could also tell that users who missed or didn’t interact with the upfront notification also don’t know how to access Key Plays or may not even know they exist.
Let’s dig into the upfront notification
Our live sports users are highly engaged and this particular use case targets those users who have started watching a live game late. These users are already feeling pressure to not miss anymore of the live game and thus being prompted with options at this point in their user journey is incredibly important.
The upfront notification was causing confusion and anxiety.
The toast reads “How would you like to watch?”, which is a confusing question to ask people who are highly intent on watching a live game. Even more confusing, the default CTA reads “Resume” which does not give the user enough information to understand. What are we resuming? The game? The question in the prompt? Pressing that button will in fact simply dismiss the notification, but how would a user know that? The “Catch up with Key Plays” CTA is three clicks away and doesn’t give users who are unaware of the feature any context for what that button will do, adding anxiety and hesitation to an already confused user journey. Finally, to top it all off, users were only given 8 seconds to read and absorb the notification, grab their remote and make their decision before the notification dismissed itself, providing incentive to users to just ignore the notification altogether.
The Solution
Working with my PM and a UX Copywriter we reshaping this moment in the journey. Our users want to watch a live game, so let’s not bother them with questions. Instead the toast message “Catch up on the action you missed” provides context and alludes to what the feature does. “Watch Key Plays” now the default focus - helps users who may not know the feature tie its function the the message, “Catch up on the action you missed”.
We lighten the cognitive load by reducing the amount of buttons (and have the button do exactly what they say) and allow users time to make a decision by upping the time on screen to 15 seconds.
These changes were quick to code and very low LOE and had a massive impact, boosting the engagement with Key Plays from a low 3% to an average of 18%. Huge win.
Key Plays was subsequently prioritized and featured as part of the first-ever streaming-exclusive NFL Wild Card game between the Miami Dolphins and the Kansas City Chiefs on January 13; the biggest live-streamed event in U.S. history, reaching nearly 28 million viewers, and helping to drive Peacock to its highest concurrent streams and usage day in the platform's history.
Looking ahead
A mobile redesign (which includes Key Plays) is also on the roadmap. Here is a quick view of some concepts and designs my team and I have had in the works.
