2026~ TV app design
F1 Race Companion
Role
Senior UX Designer
Team
UI Designer
Product Manager
Developers
Timeline
4 months
Skills
UX Research
UX Design
Product strategy
Workshop facilitation
Accessibility
Brief
Creating the ultimate race companion for F1 fans
F1 fans are hungry for more - more data, more driver perspective, more depth - but they don't want to miss a second of the race to get it.
This project set out to answer a deceptively difficult question: how do you build a rich companion experience that enhances the broadcast without competing with it?
I led UX strategy across the full product, from shaping the vision with no fixed brief, to defining MVP scope, to making confident design and product calls amid competing stakeholder priorities and shifting technical constraints.
Context
An ambitious brief with minimal guardrails
The initial brief was visionary but intentionally open. There were no fixed requirements, limited clarity on data availability, and real uncertainty around what was technically feasible. That ambiguity was the first design challenge.
My role from day one was to bring structure to the undefined: align stakeholders early, set the boundaries of exploration and ensure that all decisions were a reflection of user needs.
Getting this foundation right was what made the rest of the project possible.
Discovery
Learning from the people who produce and watch F1
Before designing anything, I needed to understand the world we were designing within. I worked closely with F1 broadcast and digital content producers to understand how a live race is produced, how data is contextualised in real time, and how editorial decisions shape what viewers see and feel.
This informed a cross-functional workshop I led across designers, producers, product managers, developers and AI experts. The goal was to surface assumptions, generate ideas, and find alignment on what this experience could and should be.
AI played an early role in mapping the data landscape
In designing a data-led experience, AI helped us identify the breadth of data opportunities available and explore how different types of data might be visualised for different fan contexts.
Understanding users
Finding the audience with the most to gain
Quantitative viewership data pointed us toward medium fans: people who watch several live races a season, but rarely all of them, and almost never practice sessions. They're engaged, curious, and data-interested, but not yet deeply invested.
This was the audience most likely to be transformed by a richer companion experience.
We ran moderated research sessions to test initial concepts
looking specifically at: which data felt valuable, how presentation affected comprehension, how much was too much, and crucially, whether the perceived value of data changed depending on what was happening in the race.
Key insights that shaped design direction
Insight here
To handle the analysis without dedicated research resource, we used AI to consolidate notes and synthesise findings, freeing us up to keep designing rather than spend weeks in spreadsheets. This wasn't a shortcut; it was a deliberate workflow decision that kept the project moving at pace.
Design refinement
From validated insight to a designed system
With research complete and MVP scope defined, I led UX across the full experience — from information architecture through to individual interaction patterns.
With persisting uncertainty of scope, a key part of my role was knowing what to protect, what to cut, and what to position as a post-MVP as we refined the product.
I took ownership of the entire UX logic and strategy, including information architecture, results and standings, driver and team pages, circuit, explainers, and recap experiences.
A key challenge: how do you let fans explore without losing sight of the race?
With such compelling insight from initial research telling us the importance of the main coverage above all else, it was important for us to explore how we can maintain the main broadcast where possible, and also provide an easy route back to the linear channel.
To further test options, I ran an unmoderated user test to explore several behavioural patterns and UI presentations. This set out to understand comprehension, ease of return, and how each option felt in the context of watching the live race.
The findings gave us a clear direction and the confidence to commit to it ahead of delivery.
Outcome
Launching a scalable F1 FanView experience
The result was the all-new F1 Sidebar FanView experience: a rich ecosystem of data and content accessible behind the red button, built to complement the live broadcast without competing with it.
Beyond shipping the product, it also established a validated model of which the business can now invest more time and resource into evolving the product further. New features have since been added to the roadmap as part of this product's evolution.
The work delivered:
A scalable MVP that launched on schedule
A validated data-alongside-broadcast model, tested with real users
Clear architectural patterns enabling future feature expansion
Insight here
Key design decisions
A widget-based browse experience built for discovery
F1 fans don't always know what they're looking for; they want to explore.
Rather than a fixed menu of destinations, we designed an immersive widget-based interface that surfaces drivers, teams, alternate feeds, circuit information and explainers in a browsable, visual format.
Rethinking navigation for the remote
Results and standings originally relied on tabs, but on a TV remote, tabs require multiple directional inputs to traverse, and also leaves options hidden with minimal horizontal real-estate.
We replaced tabbed filters with dropdowns and segmented controls, reducing the number of clicks needed and making navigation significantly more efficient without sacrificing clarity.
Elevating broadcast through live data
Driver onboards were enhanced with contextual data to help fans understand what they're watching, not just witness it. Data here is basic, but contextual and in time with the broadcast.
In F1, latent data is a broken experience, so for data points that couldn't be guaranteed live and accurate, it wasn't included for MVP. Richer data layers like tyre compounds are scoped for future phases as the pipeline matures.
Integrated multiview to deepen fandom
Research was clear: fans want to follow their favourite driver or team, but they won't sacrifice the main broadcast to do it. These feel like competing desires — and they are, unless the design explicitly solves for both.
We integrated multiview directly into the onboards experience, letting fans watch alternate feeds side-by-side with the main broadcast, or go full screen when they want immersion. This was the decision that most directly resolved the central tension identified in discovery, and it became one of the defining features of the product.
Reflection
What leading through ambiguity actually looks like
This project was a defining experience in leading through ambiguity.
Key learnings included:
How to shape a brief with no requirements into a deliverable MVP
Managing moving goalposts and changing scope without losing coherence
Making confident decisions amid competing stakeholder priorities
Knowing what to protect, what to cut back, and how to plan what comes next
It reinforced that senior design work is as much about judgement, facilitation, and decision-making as it is about execution.