Eurovision Song Contest concepts for connected devices

This post is about concepts we've developed around the theme of the Eurovision Song Contest. The work is part of the MediaScape project - an EU-funded project about developer-friendly, HTML-centric standards for connected devices. As part of the project we are required to build a prototype to show the the benefits of the technologies developed within the project for connecting TVs and mobile devices.

I've written before that these kinds of projects are often unhealthily technology-focused, leading to implausible "use cases" which are not things that any real person would use. For this reason Joanne Moore and Andrew Nicolaou led the work on this project to make it genuinely user-centered.

We'll do a separate post about the process, but the main principle is that we talk to users - real ones - at every stage, including starting the project by researching what people do and what they want. This doesn't preclude creativity on our part - anything but, as you'll see below - but it does mean decisions at each stage are based on evidence, rather than guesses or arbitrary decisions. To get this user feedback we need prototypes, but a wide range of different kinds of prototypes can perform this function, as I've written about here.

When making user-facing prototypes it's essential to get the team and potential participants excited and interested in the project. The underlying technology is serious but that doesn’t mean the TV programme, prototypes and interactions can’t be playful.

This kind of project is an exercise in creativity but also in decision-making: we had to generate a wide range of ideas in order to come up with as many potential high-quality concepts as possible - and then winnow that list down to the best ones before we started to make them. To do this we used low-fidelity prototypes, which allows us to get the information we need extremely quickly and efficiently.

This stage culminated in team member Dan Nuttall directing the team in video "advertisements" for the three prototypes, a very effective (and playful) way to both understand and convey to others how the prototype would be used, without making the concept look too finished. We've included them here and we hope you enjoy them.

The process

The work was constrained to seven days over two weeks. We had eight people attending and two others who dropped in to facilitate some sessions. Joanne ran most of the sessions, recruited six participants, and gathered some initial insights about how fans watch the Eurovision Song Contest, with whom, and with what devices.

This was the schedule:

Week 1:

• Share background research into users, technologies and existing services
• Identify themes and build ideas based around them
• Refine and prepare early ideas
• Gather feedback from Eurovision fans around how the ideas could enhance or change into their current experience

Week 2:

• Identify user feedback findings to build and adapt ideas
• Filter ideas by reviewing and score them, to focus on which to expand in more detail
• Create detailed story boards and record an ‘advert’ for each idea

At the end of the first week we had 15 ideas, and pitching them to our user group gave us information about which to take to the next stage. If some of the participants thought they would have used the application or something like it, or their response was enthusiastic, then it passed this user 'test'; if they stated that they wouldn't use it, or if it would be detrimental to their enjoyment of the programme, or they didn't see the point, it failed. We found this particularly useful for excluding ideas which were obviously not right for the audience, however much we ourselves were attached to those ideas. We also got more general insights into how people behaved during the contest, which parts of the programme they valued most, and which parts they found less interesting.

The prototypes

After a number of refinements and filtering sessions, three final concepts were selected and each was prototyped in two ways:

• a storyboard to show how the idea could be used
• a video ‘advert’, to illustrate the ideas in use

Here are the final three in storyboard form. The videos for all three are embedded in this post.

Prototype 1: It's EuroTime!

Find out what’s coming up on the show, and set a reminder to make sure you catch it. Quickly find performances you missed or want to remember.

It’s Eurovision night and Ana, Bruce and Carl settle in to watch the show. Ana doesn’t want to miss the UK’s performance so she reaches for her phone. The app shows the schedule for the show. Ana finds the UK and presses the "remind" star.

A reminder triggers on the phone when the pre-performance "postcard" video is broadcast, which is one minute before the act goes on stage. Ana’s phone automatically plays the pre-performance video with a countdown until the UK performs.

Ana can close the reminder or switch the main TV to the Eurovision broadcast.

As countries perform, the timeline comes alive with images from the acts. The red line shows how far through the show you are. Selecting a country replays their performance. Press and hold to quickly hear and play each country’s song in-line.

Prototype 2: EuroMeme

Clip and share your favourite moments. Don’t want to clip yourself? See and share clips others have made.

Diane and Eduado see a funny moment during Ukraine’s performance. Diane opens EuroMeme on her tablet, which displays most Popular and Most Recent clips and a live view of the show in sync with the TV.

To clip a moment, Diane presses the Live View tile. She taps to pause the video stream on the tablet and scrolls the stream backwards. She sets the start and end points by scrolling through the video. She sees a preview of her clip.

She can then share her clip via email, send to her social media accounts, or direct to the BBC.

From the main screen she can view a grid of other peoples’ clips. Tapping a tile plays the clip. Diane can share these clips too.

Prototype 3: EuroQuizion

Play along with the results - as they come in.

Eurovision night and a group of friends are enjoying the Eurovision Song contest together. The voting is over and the results are about start coming in.

"Hello Lithuania”: The game is about to start. The group are invited to play along via push notification to their phone. If they accept, a three second countdown begins. Each game is different but follows the same template: 15 seconds to play, and for each game you have to pick the country that will get the most votes from the current country voting. Points are awarded to you according to the actual votes from that country.

Example games might be: accelerometer marble roll, tilt your phone to land the parachute to a flag dropzone.

"...and 8 points from Lithuania go to..." When the country announces their highest points, the mini game ends, and players find out their scores.

"Goodbye Lithuania" - while the presenters are saying goodbye, the players find out who won the round, and see the overall leaderboard for the group. The countdown for the next game begins.

Next steps

The end result of this process - which we think has been exceptionally effective - is a selection of three prototype concepts with extensive and useful documentation, which are all quite different, but all meet the requirements we set at the start: they are engaging, meet user needs and fulfil the objectives of the project to show the value of the technologies. And as a team, we all understand the concepts and are interested in making them.

We've chosen one to continue with for MediaScape ("EuroMeme") and are working on it currently.