The product = brand
The brand = product
Translating our brand into our core product.
I am firm believer to break down barriers between brand and product: both add to the experience of our users and the touch-points they have starting from communication to entering the product.
Our mvp product was delivered >12 months. We set out to compete with bigger players like Netflix/Prime with only a fraction of dev-resources.
My team and I have beencontributing with
1) Vision and (early) Experience Design
2) Design System (for Brand inclusion)
3) Onboarding Experience
4) Technical writing
In our initial workshop we got product, design, marketing, customer service and programming together and defined what we set out to build.
"A simple local TV everywhere experience to scale across Europe".
To start with the User, we moved onto creating 5 initial hero journeys to start working on this new experience:
1. Get meaningful content right after sign up
2. Continue watching a series in VOD that I just watched live
3. Understand why I have to pay extra for this title
4. See what my friends are into and watching
5. Create a custom channel based on what I like
The first touchpoint, our landingpage, was supposed to mirror the brand and product experience we wanted to convey. Back in the day, TV was a lean back experience (A). But today's streaming service use a "lean-forward" experience (B). Users are required to look for content; they have choice and a bigger selection to chose from.
In TV days this was different,...this was charming. We wanted to recreate this.
To re-create this experience, we chose between 3 directions:
#1 Option Simplicity
Bold:
• Just four menu items
• Large hero pieces of content
Immersive:
• Land straight into content
• Content broken up in different ways, providing lots of onward
Effortless:
• Just four menu items
• Land right into the content
tailored to you
• Menu always accessible
#2 Option Pyramid
Bold:
• Leading with just 3 items
• Not a traditional menu
• Big curated sections per genre
Immersive:
• Playback at the heart
• Easy onward journeys
• Big curated sections per genre
Effortless:
• Always 3 contextual suggestions
• Only one browse section
• Simple tab design
#3 Option Cinematic
Bold:
• Cinematic hero areas
• Not a traditional menu layout
• Only four menu items
Immersive:
• Cinematic and rich browsing
• Content suggested whilst still
in the main menu
• Dive deeper by just continuing
to scroll
Effortless:
• Content suggested whilst still in the main menu
• Only four menu areas • Simple navigation
We combined the best elements of each iteration through iterations and user-testing.
This was our pitch to the board to get the funding we required to build the MVP.
We then connected both the brand teams as well es the design & product teams to best fit our brand characteristics into our product.
Starting with colors...
...to the font choice. We paid extra attention into how each font is behaving via different platforms (mobile, web, tv) as well as character spacing to best present content.
...to the onboarding experience, every wording, and every piece of content we decided to put up on the platform.
Since we believe(d), every aspect of the product, is a representation of our brand, we fostered close collaboration between the brand and product teams on a daily basis.