Afro-Diasporic Perspectives:
Co-Creating Product Value for Black Viewers

CLIENT:
Disney+

RELATIONSHIP:
Agency, Freelance

PROJECT DURATION:
8 Weeks

TEAM:
Disney+: Head of UX Research, 2 Senior Researchers
Agency: Director of Design Strategy, Senior UX Designer, UX Strategist, Senior Design Researcher (myself)

RESPONSIBILITIES:
Contracted by the primary agency for expertise in inclusive design research, I designed and led 16 co-creation sessions, internal synthesis, and delivery.

OBJECTIVE:
 Advise Disney+ on inclusion & belonging strategies in content development, delivery, and discovery, and define north-star vision for cultivating an authentic user experience for Black viewers

RESULTING IMPACT:
We uncovered a robust set of insights, learnings, and jobs-to-be-done and distilled a north-star vision for Disney+ in their approach to growing and sustaining Black viewership in an honest and authentic way. Disney+ signed on for additional engagements to explore needs from different identity groups.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

In the wake of social media backlash to their “problematic content warning”, Disney+ leadership wanted to understand how inclusivity informs brand choices for Black viewers,
how they perceive brands’ efforts to course correct after taking actions that negatively impact the community, and how the business can respond to needs of Black viewers to create a better environment of belonging. In short, what identity-specific needs remain unmet?

CO-CREATION SESSIONS

I designed and led a research study using co-creation sessions to probe deeply on different subcultures within the Black diaspora, and understand content and brand patronage through various lenses of Black identity. I incorporated an inclusive sampling protocol, DEIB principles and facilitation techniques, based on current DEI praxis and philosophy.

METHODOLOGY DETAILS

Method: We conducted live & remote 16 co-creation sessions with Disney+ users, maintaining and blind study to ensure generative discovery outputs. We used Miro to facilitate our exercises and create artifacts from our sessions.

Pre-work: We asked users to bring artifacts to the session from brands they patron and content they’re watching, and to journal their thoughts on their engagement with brands for themselves and from a familial perspective.

Session Duration: 90 minutes                    

Time in-field: 2.5 weeks

Key Screener Criteria:

  • Users must have been subscribed to Disney+ and at least two additional streaming platforms.

  • We ensured a mix of family sizes to understand how parents make choices for their children and themselves.

  • A mix of diasporic groups, including descendants of enslaved people, African immigrants, Caribbean immigrants, and people of mixed race

  • We used open ended questions to ensure participants had thought through these topics prior to this engagement.

RESULT

We uncovered 7 insights regarding identity-based needs for Black viewers, grounded in behaviors, needs and desires for more inclusive streaming content and platforms.

We also identified 16 dimensions for Black viewers that are salient in selecting, watching, and resonating with content and their respective platforms, including Mood, Social Exchange, and Generational Lens.

Lastly, we collected 30+ jobs-to-be-done to help our client hone in on improvement opportunities to content and the platform. These were not only tactical jobs such as “I want to know how I will be charged,” but also more emotional jobs, such as “I want to safely and confidently entertain my family.”

These outputs directly informed a revised CXO framework, and leadership returned to the agency to conduct further research with additional identity groups.