Connect TV App

Client

GB News

Role

4 months

Role

Lead Product Design

Responsabilities

  • Competitor analysis
  • User / Stakeholders Interview
  • Interface architecture and scope of funcionalities
  • UX / UI Design (Wireframes, High-fidelity, Prototype)

The fearless champion of Britain, its voices and its values.

The objective of this project was to redesign the entire suite of GB News Connected TV apps with a focus on enhancing user experience, driving engagement, and increasing revenue.

CTV is central to GB News’s long-term business strategy, prioritising advanced data collection, dynamic personalisation, and sophisticated, targeted advertising.

Challenges

  • Platform-specific feature limitations and update cycles 
  • Complexity in maintaining cross-device data synchronisation 
  • Ensuring robust privacy, data management, and regulatory compliance 
  • Analytics and monetisation integration
  • Content licensing differences across platforms.

Key Objectives

By embracing the rapid shift towards digital consumption and video-led platforms, the redesign creates a more data-driven experience that actively supports the brand’s long-term growth and monetisation objectives. 

Enhance content discovery and personalisation across all platforms

Increase user engagement and time spent within the app environment

Promote registrations and paid subscriptions via tailored conversion journeys

Implement robust analytics systems to monitor engagement and content performance 

Improve app stability and cross-platform performance. 

Impact

All users are now required to register to watch content. This approach enables us to enhance their experience by utilising a unique ID across Web, TV, and App platforms. Our key performance indicators are Total Plays and Time Spent on the App.

+33%

Total plays on Samsung TV

October 2025

+14%

In average on Hybrid Platforms

October 2025

+7.5%

On Native Platforms

October 2025

Analysis of the current app

What our users are saying?
We began a comprehensive review of our current app to understand user sentiment and how this is reflected in our analytics. Additionally, we conducted in-person interviews with users and stakeholders from each department: commercial, product, analytics, editorial, TV, and senior management, to identify the key features they appreciated, disliked, and their perspectives on news apps.

Swot Analysis

Competitive Analysis

A review of leading UK TV streaming platforms identified gaps in usability, live content access, and search features. Our analysis focused on modern UI trends set by Netflix, Apple TV, and Prime Video to inform design improvements prioritising engagement and seamless user journeys. 

User Journey

To begin, we created a simple information architecture that addresses both business and user goals, organised into Home, Watch Live, Radio Live, Search, Originals and My GBN. This streamlined structure enabled us to design seven key user journeys, allowing users to access any journey with a single click, as illustrated below.

1. How to Register

2. How to Watch Live

3. How to watch a: Catch-up or Clip

4. How Search

5. How to Listen Live

6. How to Watch Moments

7. How to Add / Remove / Edit My List

Wireframe

We initially developed a set of wireframes largely inspired by Disney+, a favourite reference among our stakeholders. Following feedback and a meeting with senior management, we redesigned the wireframes, retaining the seven key user journeys while prioritising not only strong visual impact but also a product that can be easily updated via the CMS and fully customised for each user.

Design System

The Design System provided an opportunity to finally adopt our dark blue as the primary colour, a trend the company plans to follow more broadly in the near future with our Web 3.0 initiatives (though that’s a topic for another UX case study). This allowed us to enhance visual elements with white for contrast, resulting in a CTV app with a sophisticated and elegant appearance.

Output

Drawing inspiration from a bold new visual identity, the CTV app suite for GB News now presents a unified and elegant user experience.

Through a streamlined design system and a commitment to adaptability, the app seamlessly integrates live and on-demand journalism, positioning GB News at the forefront of digital broadcasting for modern audiences.

Click here to see the prototype

Final Thoughts

The final CTV app suite provides a unified, engaging, and future-ready user experience, integrating GB News’s live and on-demand journalism with advanced analytics, social features, and highly-targeted monetisation capabilities. New features such as live commenting, in-pause advertising, and the ability to watch from the start have been introduced to further enrich the viewing experience. This strategic redesign positions GB News as a digital-first broadcaster—capable of meeting and exceeding the evolving needs of modern news consumers