The brief
Immediate Media manage a large number of magazines and websites under licence from the BBC. When I arrived they were going through a digital transformation similar to what I had been involved with while at Bauer Media. They had a large number of websites all residing on different web platforms. This was creating an excessive amount of technical debt. To combat this they created a single platform to host all of their digital products. This enabled them to push updates and features that could potentially be used across all brands.
I joined the team in 2019 to bring my expertise in UX for digital publishing to help them overcome some obstacles. The majority of their revenue was still coming from print, but as print sales were dwindling they were looking for ways to provide premium tailored services online and explore ways to generate revenue from the improved experiences.
We set up several user workshops very early on to gain an insight into what Gardeners’ World users would find good value for money as a service online. We spoke to three types of gardeners. New to gardening, intermediate gardeners, and experienced gardeners. Two things that stood out to me very quickly were all experience groups had a real passion for their green space, and even the most experienced gardeners struggled to get it right a lot of the time. The vast majority of the people we spoke to were passionate about the Gardeners’ World brand, via the TV show, the magazine and the website. The majority also felt that the website was falling short of tailored content in comparison to some other gardening websites.
Ideation
We organised a week-long hackathon for a number of the digital teams to attend. We split up the digital teams into four groups. Each team was given a full day to look through the data we had gained from the workshops then answer a series of questions, then create a concept for a product.
- What could we do to improve our users’ gardening experience?
- What could we do to improve our users’ digital experience?
- What could the digital team do to improve the value of our brand to our users?
- What are our users struggling with?
- If we offered a tiered subscription service, what would the tiers look like?
- We wanted to produce a single concept that would be useful to the BBC Gardeners’ World users. The plan was to pick the idea the four teams like the most out of the four, produce some rapid prototypes and test the idea with the same user groups we had already spoken to. It turned out that two of the ideas really stood out and we had the resources so we decided to prototype and test both.
BBC Gardeners’ World
BBC Gardeners’ World is the UK’s #1 destination for gardening advice, ideas and expertise. Inspiring gardeners for over 50 years, the brand’s reach is bigger than ever—now reaching over 1.5 million passionate gardeners who are highly engaged across print, digital, events, offers and new premium digital services for subscriber club members.
The brief
Immediate Media Company manage a large number of magazines and websites under licence from the BBC. When I arrived they were going through a digital transformation similar to what I had been involved with while at Bauer Media. They had a large number of websites all residing on different web platforms. This was creating an excessive amount of technical debt. To combat this they created a single platform to host all of their digital products. This enabled them to push updates and features that could potentially be used across all brands.
I joined the team in 2019 to bring my expertise in UX for digital publishing to help them overcome some obstacles. The majority of their revenue was still coming from print, but as print sales were dwindling they were looking for ways to provide premium tailored services online and explore ways to generate revenue from the improved experiences.
We set up several user workshops very early on to gain an insight into what Gardeners’ World users would find good value for money as a service online. We spoke to three types of gardeners. New to gardening, intermediate gardeners, and experienced gardeners. Two things that stood out to me very quickly were all experience groups had a real passion for their green space, and even the most experienced gardeners struggled to get it right a lot of the time. The vast majority of the people we spoke to were passionate about the Gardeners’ World brand, via the TV show, the magazine and the website. The majority also felt that the website was falling short of tailored content in comparison to some other gardening websites.
Ideation
We organised a week-long hackathon for a number of the digital teams to attend. We split up the digital teams into four groups. Each team was given a full day to look through the data we had gained from the workshops then answer a series of questions, then create a concept for a product.
What could we do to improve our users’ gardening experience?
What could we do to improve our users’ digital experience?
What could the digital team do to improve the value of our brand to our users?
What are our users struggling with?
If we offered a tiered subscription service, what would the tiers look like?
We wanted to produce a single concept that would be useful to the BBC Gardeners’ World users. The plan was to pick the idea the four teams like the most out of the four, produce some rapid prototypes and test the idea with the same user groups we had already spoken to. It turned out that two of the ideas really stood out and we had the resources so we decided to prototype and test both.
My Garden
The first of the two features was My Garden. This feature enabled registered website users to submit data to us regarding their garden and their gardening goals. With this data, we would provide them with tailored content to match their skill level. We could give them advice on what to do next, how to do it, and most importantly when to do it. This would be shown in a separate news feed that would be unique to each user.
My low-fidelity wireframe of the home page introducing the new feature to all users.
My low-fidelity wireframe of the My Garden lander for all users.
Onboarding
Just before we jump into the two aforementioned features there was another problem to solve first. Both of the features required the user to input data that would provide them with a personalised experience. As the Gardeners’ World website hadn’t really offered any special content to registered users before, we had to come up with a method to increase user registration. For this, we created an onboarding method that wouldn’t feel intrusive. We would ask them a series of questions about their garden, and their goals for their garden as they registered. The user can answer as many questions as they like, or stop at any point and submit the questions they have answered up to that point.
How onboarding works with infinite questions.
My low-fidelity wireframe of the My Garden lander with an onboarding modal.
My low-fidelity wireframe of the My Garden page for registered users with additional optimisation examples.
The aim of this feature is to gain as much data about the users’ circumstances as possible and use that data to make their gardening experience more intuitive. The system is designed to continue learning as much as possible until we feel like we can provide them with the best possible gardening experience.
The Planner
During my first few days at Gardeners’ World, I noticed there was a page on the website that presented a list of things you should be doing in your garden during the current month. If you wanted to plant a particular type of flower or vegetable, this is when you should do it. The site never specified the exact dates as there could be several factors that could change this such as the users’ location or even non-standard weather patterns.
What if we could be more accurate regarding these details? Or even better, what if we could rely on other users’ data to help pinpoint these dates? I wanted to create a calendar-style planner that could use AI to help gardeners of all experiences be more accurate with their planting.
The user could be presented with a basic list of to-dos and be given an ideal date to perform the task. If a large enough set of users in a particular location were changing the dates in a linear direction could the AI try to ascertain why and inform other users too? The users could also add their own tasks to the calendar in advance and be notified nearer the time. If a large enough set of users were adding a specific to-do to their calendar around the same time, we could inform other users with similar datasets that this could be an option for them too.
Several other features could be added to the planner too. We could sell in-season products and introduce competitions. Enabling users to share their personalised planners with friends could help drive an increase in users too.
My low-fidelity design of the Planner with tooltips for presentations
Monetisation
During the initial user workshops, I was quite surprised to find out how much people were spending on their gardening, even as just a hobby. The average figure was around £35 a month. Just before I completed this contract we were looking at a number of tiered packages where we could supply all the necessary testing kits, seeds, and tools in a package optimised for each user level and price range. The right seeds and tools for the jobs that would need to be done that month. Literally, a one-stop-shop with everything you would need to tend to your garden for a full month delivered directly to your door.
