Sling TV disrupted traditional cable by offering live TV over streaming, but early UX decisions blurred the line between live, on-demand, and transactional content — creating confusion, friction, and churn. I led a comprehensive UX strategy and redesign proposal to re-center Sling TV around a clear, best-in-class Live TV experience, grounded in customer behavior, usability research, and platform data.
Business & Customer Problem
Sling TV faced a structural UX challenge:
- Customers expected traditional TV behaviors (channel surfing, grid guides, DVR)
- The product UI increasingly resembled SVOD platforms
- Content types (Live, SVOD, TVOD) lacked clear differentiation
- Cancellation drivers pointed to usability, missing DVR, and value perception
A key insight emerged: Sling TV was a live TV service without a clearly defined live TV experience.
UX Strategy & Approach
1. Re-Anchor the Product Around Live TV
Customer data showed viewers watched a small, consistent set of channels (5.9/week on average), reinforcing the need for fast, habitual navigation. We reintroduced and modernized core TV behaviors:
- Browse-while-watching (Picture-in-Picture)
- Last five channels recall
- Directional channel surfing
- A time-based grid guide
- Persistent clock for temporal awareness
Strategic intent: Reduce cognitive load and align with deeply learned TV mental models.
2. Clarify Content Types & User Intent
Users struggled to understand the difference between Live TV, On-Demand (SVOD), and Transactional (TVOD / Pay-Per-View). We proposed:
- A distinct Live TV destination
- Content organized by intent, not internal taxonomy
- Clear visual and navigational separation between content modes
Usability testing validated the approach with 100% task success rates in identifying content types and finding what was airing live (N=32)
3. Blend Familiar Navigation with Modern Discovery
To avoid alienating traditional TV users while still evolving the platform, we combined:
- Grid-based navigation for predictability
- Analytics-driven ribbons that adapt to behavior
- Smart watchlists for continuity
- Elevated search as a first-class navigation entry
This hybrid model balanced comfort and exploration.
4. Treat Monetization as a UX Problem
Rather than layering revenue features on top of the experience, we integrated them naturally:
- Freemium access for prospects
- Contextual upsells for unsubscribed content
- Simple one-click Extras management
- DVR simplified through favoriting at series and episode levels
Goal: Align business outcomes with perceived customer value.
Outcomes & Impact
While presented as a forward-looking proposal, the work delivered strong validation and alignment:
- 100% task success in Live TV discovery testing
- Strong qualitative feedback: "It's just like flipping channels." / "This feels more like TV than most streaming services."
- A clear UX roadmap aligned to top churn drivers
- A scalable experience framework for future platform evolution
What I'd Do Differently Today
If I were leading this work now, I would:
- Push harder on personalization earlier, using real-time behavioral signals to adapt Live TV surfaces dynamically
- Invest sooner in performance and reliability UX, given buffering and technical issues were top churn drivers
- Design the experience as cross-device first, accounting for mobile-to-TV handoff patterns
- More explicitly connect UX decisions to subscription lifecycle metrics (trial → activation → retention)