Please note, this project required me to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). This greatly limits my ability to freely share information here. If you want to read the full case study, know more about my process, or the outcomes regarding any of my other projects, feel free to reach out!

Background

Months before Buzzer signs with NBA, NHL and PGA Tour in quest to reinvent the live sports landscape with new streaming service. The product team and myself were fixated on testing, iterating and validating our eventual Buzzer moment algorithm which triggers personalized sports moments for fans to watch based on their preferences. Utilizing one of the best methods for capturing real-world context and behaviors, I led one of our initial “discovery phase” research studies: Defining NBA Buzzer Moments via Dairy Study. 

Role

• Planned, facilitated and implemented a 4 week diary study to create deep understanding of what and how Buzzer moment notifications motivate fans to watch live sports.

• Conducted 1:1 user interviews with each of the participants to discuss potential ideas shared in their entries.

• Research results were consolidated into an insights deck and final presentation which were used to re-align product roadmap and conduct future research.

Insights

• Following the study, project team began iterating on the Buzzer Moment algorithm to emphasize close games, overtimes, and player moments. The following season we successfully triggered 700+ Buzzer moments to sports fans across the US. 

• User feedback spawned many new ideas for the product roadmap and future research such as “Buzzer Beats”, a daily newsletter helping fans stay up to date with the biggest events in sports each day. Eventually generating 30k+ subscribers and contributing to year over year growth in Buzzer moments watched.

• I followed up this research study by creating fan personas to better understand product market fit and target various types of fans who would find value in Buzzer.

Reflections

There's so much value in running contextual research studies, this foundational project paid dividends later down the road as we worked to explore what our actual users via analytics might be doing in their everyday lives while using Buzzer. 

The lack of a functional app to send moment notifications and track logging analytics increased the effort level for my team and the participants. Speaking on behalf of my team, we’re grateful to work closely with participants who worked around loopholes with us as we conducted this study as a <10 person early stage start up. 

One of the biggest takeaways that we would learn later and is a solid rule of thumb for diary studies is that what people say and do will oftentimes differ. We were unable to charge to actually watch moments so while many participants said “I would pay to watch”, even though we were only charging micro-transactions…. What people say and do are two different things.

Many thanks to my teammates who helped make this project happen.