Groups and Schedules Feature
Company
Spectrum
Role
Content Designer
Team
UX Designer, Content Designer, Product Managers, UX Researchers, and Developers
Company Background
Charter Communications' Spectrum brand reaches over 32 million customers with services for Internet, TV, mobile, and voice.
Problem
Currently, there is a grouping and scheduling feature within Spectrum's app. However, it doesn't exist on web.
Opportunity
Bring the grouping and scheduling feature into responsive web and enhance the user experience.
This feature gives users the ability to group devices together and create a pause schedule for them. For example, this would be useful for a parent to pause access to the internet on gaming devices during homework hours.
I reviewed the current experience in the app and identified areas for improvement with the UX designer:
- Creating a group and a pause schedule are on two pages. How can we consolidate the experience?
- There are several tech limitations with creating a group. How can we effectively communicate tech limitations?
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NAVIGATION
As a starting point, we thought about how a user would navigate to the feature. We decided to place it in the Your Services page and specifically the Explore card to give it prominence.
I brainstormed different options:
- Create Group
- Create Groups and Schedules
- Edit Groups and Schedules
Based on a suggestion from design leadership, we went with Manage Groups and Schedules because that most accurately describes what a user would be doing. It's not just creating a group and schedule—they can change it as well.
CREATING A GROUP AND SCHEDULE
For the screens where users create a group and schedule, I wanted to emphasize its limitations.
- Devices can only be assigned to one group at a time.
- There can only be one pause schedule per group.
- Each pause schedule can only be at the same start and end time for each selected day.
With the idea of reaching a user with the right information at the right time, I worked with the UX designer to place text in the most relevant spots.
ASSIGN SCHEDULE
We used the "Assign Schedule" dropdown as an opportunity to illustrate the value of the feature. For example, the Weekdays Evenings preset could be used to pause internet access on gaming devices during homework hours.
We also had a "Custom" selection, so a user could define their own schedule. The "Unpaused" option is the default without a schedule. If a user clicks "Until Unpaused," all the devices in the group would be paused for the foreseeable future.
- Unpaused
- Until Unpaused
- Weekday Evenings
- Weekends
- Custom
WORKING WITH RESEARCH
We were lucky to have the opportunity to work with research on this feature. I met with the lead UX researcher on the project to talk about the overall process and what I wanted to get feedback about.
It was important for me to get feedback about the dropdown options. Does a user understand the different options, especially Unpaused and Until Unpaused?
Also, I wanted to learn if users read the additional information I added. Does a user naturally read the extra information? If so, what do they think of it?
RESULTS
The lead UX research conducted moderated usability tests with 5 people. The main takeaways were:
- All users clearly understood what "Unpaused" and "Until Unpaused" meant. Though, users were confused about the presets (weekend, weekday), as those could be different based on various schedules.
- Users noticed the added copy, though they said that they may not use the feature due to its limitations.
- While there were a few entry points for this feature, several users said they would look in the "Connected Devices" list for the feature.
FEEDBACK FROM PRODUCT & DEVELOPMENT
We presented our designs to the product and development team. We learned that due to a tech limitation, creating a group and a schedule has to be on a separate page. In addition, stakeholders wanted design parity with the current experience in the app. For that reason, they asked for the assign schedule dropdown to be removed.
Based on this feedback and the results of the usability testing, I made updates to the design with the UX designer.
To start, we placed the feature within the Your Devices section because that is where users expected it to be.
INTRO SCREEN
I added copy on the initial page of the feature to give a user information about why it's helpful. I also added copy for an empty state to encourage users to create a group.
CREATE GROUP SCREEN
I provided more explanation about the limitations of groups in order to prevent users from being confused. I placed that information where it was most relevant (in the Assign Devices section) vs. all the directions being at the top of the screen.
Along with the UX designer, we changed the radio buttons to check marks to make it clear a user can select multiple devices. Also, I made devices plural to match that idea.
CREATE PAUSE SCHEDULE SCREEN
Similar to the groups page, I added microcopy about the limitations of a pause schedule, so users would be aware. Also, I removed "Select" from "Select Days" because the other labels didn't start with verbs, and I wanted to be consistent. Lastly, I added "on selected days" to the pause microcopy to make it clearer when it would be active.
It's really important to be on the same page with everyone on the team. We didn't get product requirements at the beginning of this project, and that added more work at the end.
Content design is really important. Specifically for this project, content design was really important to provide information for users that wasn't in the original experience. It would be interesting to see how users interact with this feature once it's developed and make updates accordingly.
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