Background

BAFTA View is a VOD service, exclusively used by BAFTA members, to review content entered into the BAFTA Awards. Launched in 2021 for the Film Awards one of the key development aims in 2022 was to update the platform to support BAFTA’s Games, Television and Television Craft Awards. BAFTA has been hosting and streaming Television programmes for over 10 years and supplying games codes to members for 8 years, however, the previous system design was outdated and could not longer support the larger metadata sets and assets now required for the judging processes. BAFTA View was designed to be content rich and the API links between Nucleus, BAFTA’s Awards administration system which collects the data, and the Voting Site, which contains the user data, could be updated to support more workflows.

The Process

The key aim of this project was to support more content types and awards workflows within the existing system architecture without an extensive rewriting of the code. This was achievable due to early pre-planning during the initial development phases. When the designs were first delivered stakeholders had focussed on the Film Awards and deigning a system that would work for Film Awards processes. When I began mapping the initial workflows out I also carried out an exercise where by revied workflows for the Television and Games Awards to see how easily the awards could be supported. I noticed that there were key components missing from the designs. Here are some examples:

• All entries required a video as the main content and Games entries do not have a main video

• No UI was provided to distribute Games Codes

• The core structure was designed around one entry containing all content for an entry and in the Television Awards the data is spread across multiple entries that are not linked

• The site had been designed around portrait images for film posters but for Television entries landscape images are supplied

Below is an example of the category select screen introduced for the Television and Television Craft Awards.

The first step was to return to Stakeholders, gather more requirements and then present these to the designers to work on solutions for future implementation. The challenge for the designers is that the core design had been signed off due to tight development timescales and the delivery of the new assets could not delay the phase 1 development. Therefore it was instrumental any changes made did not affect core architecture.

While the designers worked on incorporating the new features into the existing designs I broke down the difference components for each award and listed them in a grid to determine the crossover. From the grid it was evident that the requirements could be broken down into 5 component categories. These categories could be turned into controls that admin users could switch on or off on a per award basis:

• has video

• has category page

• primary judging media

• has runtime sorting

• has download button

Within these controls I could specify all of the unique parameters require, so if an Award has category page set to yes this triggers a number of different options and functionality that is no available if this is set to no and vice versa. These options are listed in the voting site against each award meaning that admins have full control over how to set up BAFTA View for each different award. This also resulted in not having to build a new mapping control page which reduced costs and time. In turn the controls could be easily expanded to allow for multiple answer or additional controls added at a later stage.

Once it had been confirmed that the API could be built with the controls and the designs would apply for all awards the net result for 2022 was to build the features in the front end for users.

Although many changes were introduced for BAFTA’s Television Awards I will be focussing on the Games Awards workflows as a case study in the next section.

The Games Awards

The Games Awards are unique within BAFTA as the Awards Judging involves playing the games instead of watching video content. Video content is supplied as supporting material alongside written statements, images and documents provided by entrants to support their submission. The key component, therefore, is the distribution of codes to members and highlighting the bundles where the games are available to members review. This in itself presents a challenge for a VOD service as it becomes a VOD service which doesn't supply any video.

The key issue is then attracting users to logging into the platform as the core asset that is being judged lives outside of the BAFTA View ecosystem, the game. The Awards team have taken this challenge and delivered by supplying a wealth of additional content that acts as a companion piece for the games. They have used the full range of functionality available to them and encouraged members to use BAFTA View as the gateway to revieing the entries, enticing them to return by adding notes, marking games played and using the filters to track and review all of the entries. The assets supplied by the entrants when populated on BAFTA View make the site look appear visually stunning enhancing the slick designs and which entice the members back time after time. This is evident in the screenshots below.

Differences in Games UI

There are differences in the Games Awards and Video as Main Judging Media Awards. This is specified in this way as its the one technical difference between the Games and all other BAFTA Awards. Once I realised this was the key component difference the task then involved finding the other key differences and then updating the UI.

Terminology was a key item which took some time to define. A core component of BAFTA View is the function to mark entries that have been reviewed as seen. This then feeds into the filters where members can choose to filter by seen or unseen only entries helping them to manage the volume of entries int he first round. The term Watched was signed off, which is clear for Films but technically a Game is Played. After deliberation the term Played was settled upon for this feature for games. This is linked to the controls set on the award and if the has video control is set to no then all the terms update. One challenge was to find all of the copy and update.

Another example is the Game Codes and Bundles. In Nucleus, BAFTA’s Awards management solution, entrants can provide codes for entrants to claim and play as part of the judging process. Games can coexist on multiple platforms and regions so the entrant has the option to provide numerous sets of codes, for example:

• Xbox (EU)

• PS5 (US)

• Apple Store (US)

Each list of codes is a different dataset and encourages members to only claim the codes they require when they claim a code the rest of the code options lock preventing the member from claiming more codes.

To simplify the process for members some games can be added to bundles, such as Steam, which means that members need only claim one code and the game is added by the entrants to the bundles. We wanted to reflect this in the BAFTA View UI so that entrants who provided individual codes were not at an advantage. A very need solution was to create a bundle section that appears in the same UI as the game code. This is illustrated in the example below.

The launch of the UI has been well received with members very happy to provide positive feedback on the welcoming of a new award into the BAFTA View Family.

“The new BAFTA view has been streamlined into a system that makes accessing content simple and intuitive. Being able to filter by dates, game systems and category is perfect for what I needed when assessing games.” – Kiron Ramdewar, BAFTA Member

“BAFTA View has a modern design that collates all the information related to each title, which makes it much easier to track and record my impressions on entered games” – Lloyd Knott, BAFTA Member

 "The revised BAFTA View is not only visually appealing, but also provides practical features that help to track status of entries. I particularly appreciate the ability to add games played alongside annotated notes, previously I had to cross reference a separate spreadsheet. Now this is conveniently all in one place!" – Jamie Smith, BAFTA Member

By the end of 2023 all BAFTA Viewing will take place within BAFTA View which is a huge technical achievement for a small in-house development team. I’m immensely proud of the work we have delivered in such a short time, whist supporting and developing our existing systems which brings benefits to BAFTA members and highlights the creative work that went into each entry allowing the Games, Films and Television Programmes to be viewed in their best light.