NRK TV Random: Discover content spontaneously
Interaction Design | AHO Oslo | 2023
We had a collaboration with NRK, which is Norway’s largest, state-owned public service radio, television and web broadcasting media organisation. It provides broad spectrum of perspectives and contributes to public discourse (very comparable to the BBC in the UK). This project was done under the mentorship of Mosse Sjaastad (AHO professor) and Alfred Clatworthy Holmen (designer from NRK).
Design problem statement
How might NRK TV mobile app make discovering and interacting with it’s content more appealing for teenagers and young adults?
Research
Understanding audience
I did a survey with 10 people and interviewed 3 people, between their late teens and mid-20s to understand How do they find what to watch on NRK or any other streaming platform. I compiled the results into an insight infographic below.
Learning
People were experiencing difficulties in making decision on “what to watch” not due the overwhelming amount of choices, but due to lack of awareness. However, NRK is a very trusted brand when it comes to their content curation. NRK was also losing relevance for a Young adult target group between 18-28 as they assosiated a “boring adult image” with it.
Concept-NRK Random
NRK Random is an additional feature on the NRK mobile app. The idea is you chat with NRK TV and it responds in the language of its content, leading you to discover something by chance. It introduces “friction” through an experience wrapped in ca hatbot function. Friction is putting resistance and discomfort, as opposed to building “seamlessness”, in a digital experience to drive more user engagement and action.
Random intends to reflect a carefree, random and dynamic dialogue with NRK.
Logo id custom letters that give a sense of being fluid and being able to reinvent yourself through streaming.
Video snippets from NRK’s content library are sliced from their original context. These clips are chosen based on their dialogue, emotions, mood, shot or acting moment.
Suppose the snippet has a dialogue, it is stripped down semantically to the literal meaning of the words(detached). Then, it is encoded with tags to be stored in a library of possible responses. These snippet should avoid any spoiler. Should be easily detachable from their original context and attachable to new contexts of user input.
Users are encouraged to input random text or emojis, which is then tagged by the system to hunt for a match in the library of possible responses stored.
The fun lies in the absurd match between user input and snippet response (attached). This communication creates a very personalised form of micro-content like memes/reels controlled by user input. The goal is to bridge them to the source of the content. Tagging cannot be limited to content-descriptive keywords but a highly diverse system to allow for a more creative matches. This was too big to be explored within the scope of this project.
Reshuffled the NRK app's current bottom navigation -Front page, Categories, Search, Direct TV and Profile, to integrate NRK Random as one distinct feature. Input field and response field are important UI pieces. Based on small user test, I implemented features that set the threshold very low for users to be fun and bridge users to the actual content through response videos.om’s UX. Input accepts text or an emoji from the user to generate a video snippet in the response field.
