How BlueJeans Took a User-First Approach to Make Live Streaming Easy
In the first half of 2022, the worldwide population spent over 15 billion hours viewing live streams, with 7 out of 10 viewers tuning into live events daily. It is projected that by 2028, the live streaming industry will be worth almost $224 billion.
Although a great number of companies are taking advantage of this tremendous opportunity to connect with their audience, many could use a hand getting started or enhancing their events. To help them join the live stream revolution, we created Studio.
So far it seems like it will be a great success: It has already won the prestigious Enterprise Connect 'Best Innovation for Virtual Meetings' award in 2022 and made a splash at SXSW.
BlueJeans saw the need for a product like Studio in 2019, but it was during the pandemic that the team really kicked it into gear. With quarantining causing a skyrocketing demand for easy live streaming, BlueJeans expedited the conceptualization, research, design, and engineering of this innovative product.
The process started with the BlueJeans design and product teams concurrently doing a deep dive in researching the live streaming industry while also meeting with customers and non-customers, including journalists, performers, gamers, influencers, and executives as well as video production crews and broadcasters. Participants were encouraged to have candid conversations about their daily routines, pain points, and what would make their professional lives easier and more productive. The designers had blue sky discussions with participants, but in accordance with the concept of Design Thinking, they refrained from getting too narrow in their focus too early.
Here is what they learned:
1) That while event companies and specialists knew they could use live streaming to grow their audience significantly, they did not know how, or too many technical issues arose when they attempted to live stream.
2) That video production crews and broadcasters invested significant time in upskilling teams and purchasing video production hardware. This discovery implied that content creators who did not operate video production hardware would need an easy-to-use and robust digital solution to create high-quality live presentations.
3) That the need was even greater than the team had imagined.
With these in mind, BlueJeans designers defined their primary objective from a UX design perspective: To make running an event as easy as joining a video meeting. And their secondary objective: To make the product inclusive and holistic on all devices with a truly dependency-agnostic approach.
With their objectives defined and their customers wishes always in mind, they concepted and built an initial click-through design experience. This first build was primarily used as an instigator to gather more data from potential users. When they tested this click-through with users, they got more detailed with their questions: They focused more on usability, functionality, and specific features that would be most helpful to users.
They learned that users wanted to be able to make the event align with their own brand and also “look great and be fun.” They wanted a way to gather data from attendees that was engaging and non-intrusive, and uncomplicated video feed mixing. They also wanted to be able to create events in the cloud as well as hosting in the cloud so they can use low-powered computers to run the show.
Most importantly, they reiterated that they wanted it to be fast and easy.
With the product launch, BlueJeans by Verizon delivered on all of these wishes by providing things like:
● Making their most frequently used features easily accessible with a modular dashboard
● Customizable presentation layouts
● Easy custom graphic and video integration
● Interactive polls and Q&A
● Highly customizable branding
The process BlueJeans used to build Studio has been a great success. The overall response has been overwhelmingly positive and promising, and BlueJeans will continue their symbiotic relationship with its customers in adding enhancements and features in the future.
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About the Author
As VP of Product Design at BlueJeans, Dave Skuratowicz oversees vision, strategy, design thinking, and testing programs for all new and existing product UX. He has over 20 years of experience building and leading teams in creating innovative product design for companies that include Apple, Google, Palm, and Cisco. He is passionate about collaborative innovation and finding useful ways to integrate emerging technologies into products.
