Power up with mySource.
mySource is the frontline’s one-stop shop for personalized news and resources at Comcast.
The platform that launched in 2018 has since gained over 100,000 users in its base, serving over 20 million content views per year—and it keeps growing.
Since joining the Xfinity Sales Communications team in 2019, I have spent my time as the Sales Engagement Platforms Manager at Comcast reshaping and redefining the mySource experience to meet the evolving needs of our audience and achieve new heights as a state of the art communications platform. mySource serves personalized experiences and content based on the user’s location and specific job or role within the company, allowing users to search through news, events, videos, resources, pages, apps and tools, and connect with each other in the site’s ‘Trending’ page.
The mySource platform went through a major design update and brand evolution in 2021, with a robust roadmap built out to continue driving future enhancements, user experience updates and a thoughtful rebranding effort to give the platform new life to create a better experience for its 100k users based on their feedback and user data.
Let’s go on the journey.
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Power up: The mySource brand and identity.
With the Xfinity rebrand of 2021, the company’s internal platforms needed to better reflect the core visual and UX principles of the Xfinity brand. With that in mind, we approached mySource with the same intent: to create a user-centric, vibrant, and dynamic site with customer connection at heart.
A logo refresh
The mySource logo’s font was reset into the modern Xfinity Brown typeface, carefully spaced and bolded on the noun to help emphasize the tool’s purpose throughout the Comcast tool system. The primary action color was set in the new Xfinity Purple and intended to evolve based on the experience (i.e. Comcast Business brand colors are a combination of blues).
A colorful design system
mySource features multiple different content types for users to access: like Apps and Tools, news content, downloadable resources, link roll-ups, content cards and more. Without the right classification and design system in place, this can easily be overwhelming to a user. Upon the rebranding, colors were designated to represent different types of content within the platform, rather than being associated with specific product lines of business or customer-facing brand components.
Navigation: Simplifying a complex experience.
When mySource launched in 2018, it featured a complex three-layered navigation experience for six separate experiences including Comcast HQ, three divisions (Central, West and Northeast) Business Partners, and Comcast Business. These included:
Universal system elements: Featuring Apps and Tools, Notifications, Followed Content, and a search bar.
Primary navigation system: Menu, Resources, ICYMI (News), and Trending pages.
Secondary navigation system: Unique based on the divisional site experience.
Based on our initial user research and feedback, we learned and discovered a couple key trends: Users did not know where to first look for content, as the secondary navigation bar had more visual emphasis (a full background color bar with hover states), and that those hover states did not respond well on tablet devices, which currently account for about 25% of mySource’s audience. We discovered that engagement in the site’s primary navigation was significantly less in comparison to other experiences in the site not utilizing the secondary navigation.
Based on author and user feedback, we considered the following pain points and benefits for both groups:
Author pain points: Pages must be duplicated across sites to display in the secondary bar
User pain points: Secondary items do not display easily in hover state, items frequently move beyond page break point, and users cannot easily identify where they should be looking for specific items. All items are available to each user (no customization aside from division).
Author benefits: No more need for page duplication, pages can be shared and links can be customized with functionality available in primary navigation.
User benefits: Users have one navigation space for all site content, and links are personalized based on their profiles.
Finding a simpler, more personalized solution:
After considering all user feedback and data trends, two things became clear as we looked for a solution.
The secondary navigation should be removed as it creates a poor user experience within the UI, and creates confusion for users as it displays duplicate page names and sections.
The primary menu space should be more personalized based on its audience and their behaviors and priorities.
We first provided a proof of concept with one of our divisional sites, and were able to infer from higher engagement levels, positive user feedback, and overall simplified user experience that this model is proven to work for all divisional site experiences. The experience was rolled out over next 1-2 months and has effectively created a more personalized user experience while making the experience for admins and authors more efficient and manageable.
Your PERSONALIZED homepage: Never miss a beat.
Similar to the product page experience in mySource, homepages also varied across divisional site experiences, as well as unique experiences based on the sales channel a user-supported. This created an additional layer of complexity when considering the design and user experience for our channel homepages. It became apparent that our homepage experiences needed enhancements and a new design system based on user needs and feedback. I wanted to build an experience that put each group’s needs first, that was built in a modular and sustainable format and also aligned with the new Xfinity + mySource brands.
After a round of initial focus groups, analysis of existing user feedback and user data, we defined the goals of our updated homepage experience:
Personalization: Through more clearly defined messaging and new functionality allowing users to curate their own news feed.
Hierarchical structure: Users want to see their sales metrics, commission information, and other sales-related details immediately upon landing. Users also want to be confident in where they are on the page, so clearly defining page sections is also a critical design and element of the user experience.
Latest news and videos: With so much content, it’s important that we create the most relevant experience and define structured news blocks based on a specific channel’s content.
Current state homepages now feature these components in the experience, and as a result, we observed:
Increased engagement on featured news content, video plays, and personalized apps and tools.
Increased homepage dwell time, indicating that users were staying on their homepage longer and not quickly leaving to go to another page in the site.
A higher number of successful searches in our two largest sales channels
Xfinity Product pages: An ON-BRAND and in-depth experience
In mySource, product pages create a specific landing page for each unique product that curates a blend of evergreen content, latest news, tagged resources, and other sales pertinent content, positioning, and resources that our frontline teams rely on to do their jobs every day. In the site’s early state, product pages varied across divisional site experiences. This was challenging for a few reasons:
Site maintenance became difficult, as page designers would have to care for up to four different site experiences in terms of both design and content.
Site pages did not always follow brand guidelines, therefore appearing stylistically disconnected.
Site pages were not mobile-friendly or responsive.
In an effort to resolve these issues and ensure that our product pages were meeting the evolving needs of our users, we first surveyed our audience and learned that they use our product pages to:
Quickly look up answers to customer questions and objections.
In-depth product knowledge including technical job aids, sales positioning, troubleshooting guides, and more.
Easily search and find more information on other Xfinity products.
To meet the needs of our audience and align with Xfinity brand guidelines, a new page format was designed and developed across all of our mySource sites. The new pages featured:
Refreshed page imagery and content
Dynamic content that can easily be updated across sites
Modular format and clearly defined sections with hierarchy, putting what users what at their fingertips first.