Frontier · 2018

The future of "TV"

Overview

A series of concepts that aim to solve for the changing ways consumers access entertainment.

Outcome

An eight-year-old research bet that still checks out: the shift this called in 2018 is exactly the one that happened.

Home screen concept for a next-generation TV interface, organized into personalized content rows
A next-generation TV, mobile, and web experience designed around how people actually watch today.
Stakeholder interviews
10
User interviews
10
Contextual inquiries
8
Survey Respondents
750
Wireframes
95+

Process

Discovery & Primary Research

The team engaged our client stakeholders through a series of interviews utilizing a stakeholder interview protocol, ensuring their line of questioning was consistent throughout.

Using the information gathered during this initial phase of discovery the team created research plans for three subsequent endeavors:

  1. Competitive and comparative analysis; what competitors are currently doing and from which comparable consumer experiences we could take cues.
  2. Contextual inquiries;the team visited eight people in their homes to observe and document how they consume video content.
  3. User evaluative interviews; further honing in on the insights gathered from the contextual inquiries, the team conducted one-hour interviews with a representative sample of an additional ten people to evaluate early-stage concepts.
Competitive and comparative analysis across 15+ services allowed us to define a baseline of what "good" looks like and set the strategy to raise that bar.
In-home shadowing and interviews gave us first-hand insights into what mattered to people in their search for delightful content.
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Deliverables

Wireframes

Based on our research insights the team produced a set of 95+ wireframes to detail the future-state experience, which set the stage for detailed design.

Home - Primary row

Poised to make good of the promise to nesstle firmly in the HDMI 1 position the home screen gives watchers access to everything they care about; their latest shows, Live TV and new releases.

Home - Secondary & Tertiary rows

Clear content hierarchy makes distinguishing between channels and programming easy.
1) Favorited or recently watched networks display here to provide quick access to that channel’s live programming. 2) A row of recently watched TV series display. Selecting the card takes the user to the Series Detail screen where they can access all available episodes.
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Full Gamut of the Experience

Onboarding screen to pick favorite shows.
The traditional EPG (Electronic Program Guide) view.
Streaming view with a context screen.
Featured view in the discovery screens.
Kids and Family discovery screen.
Streaming purchase screen.
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Mobile form factor

My Lineup: Curates a personalized selection of recent shows, DVR recordings, and favorite movies and TV shows, streamlining the content discovery process.
On Demand: Showcases a wide range of titles available for rent or purchase, featuring engaging visuals and detailed descriptions to entice user exploration.
Content Detail: Offers comprehensive information on on-demand video titles, including options to rent or purchase, enhancing the decision-making process for users.
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Motion: Orientation

Our approach to enhancing user interaction through motion design involved initially exploring various low-fidelity motion compositions. This phase allowed us to experiment with diverse methods to intuitively guide users through the interface, ensuring a seamless navigational experience.

Across the interface, motion carried the load of orientation — hover-to-play previews, category transitions, and reveal animations all signal where a user is and what they can do next, without a single explanatory label.

Navigation through titles.
Scrolling through featured releases.
Scrolling through featured categories.
Purchasing flow.
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Detailed Viewing Strategy

Complementing a robust set of detailed designs across a wide array of interfaces (TV, Web, Mobile Apps) the team defined strategies for which content should be prioritized based on the users' context — such as time of day. This armed our client with the tactical insights they needed to implement our strategic design decisions based on the primary design research.

Based on time of day, the home screen will morph into the content most relevant to that time of day.

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