Designing sub-clips for BBC JupiterWeb: an internal tool that helps journalists sort video footage
JupiterWeb is an internal BBC tool that allows video footage to be ingested, edited and published.
The Jupiter team were re-designing the current build of Davina and Jupiter to create one accessible tool for all users. The next big feature that needed building was the sub-clipping function. These needed to allow the user to sub-clip News footage within Jupiter and then send it out to other locations ready for broadcast. The design had to be fully accessible and work at all break points so it could scale down and work on mobile.
I started designing the UI after sketching a few ideas and having a look at existing sub clipping techniques. There were quite a few things that I had to keep in mind - one was mainly that we were trying to save space and keep the UI compact. The sub clipping also needed to allow the user to see the rights information within the scrub bar. We also needed to allow the user to have multiple options once they'd decided on the clip.
I designed and got feedback from colleagues in my team, iterated the design a few times and finally got to a design that felt like the right thing. As well as checking in with the business analyst to clarify the necessary components. I had to really think about what exactly was going to be happening at each step and which state each button would be at.
With each iteration I created a prototype using Origami Studios in order to test the interaction element. Getting a feel for how it would work for the user was important at this stage.
I then wrote a research script and arranged with journalists, picture producers and editors to do some user testing. This involved anther prototype I built using Axure. We tested with around 12 participants, some in the newsroom and some remotely from other newsrooms around the UK.
The research gave us valuable insights that we wouldn't have found without putting it infront of users, such as the users wanting to be able to drag the entire sub-clip area once it had been defined. We also disproved some of our assumptions, such as the user being able to see the duration of their clip. We thought this was important but it didn't seem to be.
After the testing, I collated the findings and presented these back to the developers and project team. For this team specifically, I found that they really valued hearing direct quotes from the users. So it was really important for me to highlight the things we'd learnt and to present these in a digestible and explained way.
To finish the work I created clear assets which I'd then uploaded to Zeplin for the developers to build. I'd made sure that all of the assets were clear and understandable in all states.
Project Tags
Companies
BBC
- Media Production