fuboTV Product Voice Definition

Overview

fuboTV, a sports-forward streaming service, had never had a UX writer before nor formally set out to define its positioning and voice. Over the years, many different people—the marketing team, engineers, and designers—had written in-product copy, rendering it consistently inconsistent.

I came on board as a senior UX writer in April 2019 to not only write for new and in-progress initiatives, but to shape and solidify the product voice and tone. 

Getting to the final guidelines document consisted of:

• Determining writing principles

• Voice workshop development and execution

• Synthesis and application  

Process

Determining Writing Principles

I embarked on a full audit of past and current copy across all of our platforms (web, iOS, Android, fireTV, Apple TV, Smart TV, Roku) and noted where it diverged, overarching opportunities for improvement, and wording that was particularly unfriendly to users.

I then proposed high-level principles to abide by, to have some foundation before getting more granular. The full guidelines document dives deeper into each one.

Principle 1: Trust
Be precise and direct.
Be clear.
Focus on what’s in it for them.

Principle 2: Guidance
Encourage continued engagement.
Give customers a sense of control.

Principle 3: Empathy
Take customers’ emotions into account.
Meet customers where they are.

Voice Workshop Development and Execution

I involved stakeholders from brand, marketing, and retention ahead of time in order to make sure I addressed their particular interests and concerns. I had them fill out a brief survey that gave them a sense of what the workshop would cover and allowed them to pre-generate some of the conversation.

Here’s what I asked them:

Who is our target customer?
What digital products (competitors or others) have voices you think we can borrow from?
What about our current voice do you think needs the most improvement? Feel free to add anything else you think we should discuss about reshaping our voice.

I divided the 60 minutes into three parts, and incorporated participants’ survey responses throughout.

While the adjectives generation wouldn’t happen till the end, I showed participants early and often what we wanted to end up with. I showed examples from Slack and Dropbox, assigning adjectives to their respective voices, and demonstrated how it looks when a voice is deployed consistently.

I included a slide showing that our voice was a bit all over the place, mixing language that was excited, formal, down-to-earth, and cute.

I showed suggested revisions to some of our screens to get feedback on whether they were heading in the right direction. (They were.)

Then it was time to generate. I had pre-populated Post-Its with adjectives describing the voices of brands the participants said they liked, and threw in a few obvious “no’s” for contrast. I gave them their own pads and pens as well as asked questions in order to get us more and more precise in our wording. We then voted “yes” or “maybe” and grouped similar words together.

Synthesis and application

I took a closer look at the inputs and then created a document focused on the top-line adjectives: friendly, positive, straightforward, relatable, confident.

The full document provides examples of how the traits could come through in the product. Some of the examples use existing copy that I was targeting for revision. Here’s how I gave guidance on being friendly:

Friendly 

We don’t want to just talk to our customers; we want to engage with them. We’re friendly in a way that makes them feel that they’re being seen and accommodated as individuals. Throughout their experience we should come across as an approachable guide. 

In practice:

• When we’re most friendly: 

• Welcoming people to fuboTV

• Educating on how to use fuboTV

• Success messages

• Use “we.” It adds warmth and is more personable. 

• Use “your” and “for you” to reinforce that what we do is on behalf of our customers. 

• Ask questions.  

• “Are you sure you want to delete this?” instead of “Confirm deletion”

• Make customers feel like we’re there for them. 

• “Check your internet settings, and we’ll keep trying to connect.” 

• “Need help signing in with a code?” 

I went on to apply the voice across all aspects of the user experience. Here are some examples.

User Education

Account Management

Notifications and Alerts