Channel 4

Reimagining and Redesigning the Digital Experience for Channel 4 in the On-Demand Age

Background

Channel 4 encourages innovation in everything that it does – in television, film and digital media – always seeking new ways to reach audiences and achieve impact with public service content. The organisation has an active policy to support the creative economies and ensure it has access to the best ideas and talent. When conversations around a large-scale, bottom up redesign of Channel4.com started to happen, Channel 4's creative leadership team reached out to Media Betty to lead the UX workstreams.

The ask

Channel 4 engaged Media Betty to lead the User Experience Strategy and Design workstream for a large-scale, transformational Channel4.com Redesign Project.

Key activities

The UX leadership and design work included:

Think tank invitee

Proof of concept consultancy and reviews

UX designs (500+ pages of UX design specs)

Roadmap and sprint planning consulting

Cross-team collaboration

Content strategy and design

Information architecture

User testing

Embedding in the agile set-up

The project was run by the in-house Channel 4 team using an agile methodology. Cross-team collaboration, transparency, trouble-shooting and stakeholder awareness were critical to success.

Media Betty's Director of UX and a team of Media Betty Senior UX Consultants delivered the complex user experience strategy and designs, including information architecture, working closely with the project's stakeholders, sponsors, project managers, producers, business analysts, developers, content producers, marketing leaders, digital leaders and creative design teams.

Outcomes and impacts

The Channel 4.com redesign exceeded its KPIs, including a significant increase in site visits and page views, a reinvigoration of the channel's online impact and a successful establishment of 4OD as a core offering. The ambitious, large-scale and complex project was delivered on time and to budget.

The post-launch metrics included an increase in site visits by 31% (YoY) to 230 million visits. Page views increased by 7% to 102 million pages per month (1.2 billion page views per year). This contributed to a boost in ad revenue, viewing figures (offline and online) and brand impact.

Other projects we’ve delivered for Channel 4

4Homes Content Strategy and UX Redesign (magazine site with 10million+ visits a month)

4Beauty Proof of Concept UX

4Music UX Research, Review and Strategy