HULU HIGHLIGHTS

Redesigning Hulu across TV, Mobile, and Tablet. Creating an experience to minimize decision fatigue and potential negative affects of the choice paradox. Exploring the future of television – aiming to answer the question “What will TV look like in 5, 10, 20 years?”

Experience Designer – Hulu, 2016 -2017

What we did

Hulu and Huge partnered to redesign Hulu’s core experience – for Mobile, Tablet and TV platforms – and introduced live television to the on demand streaming service. I helped deliver detailed design for the core experience, and concepting for future releases across profiles/personalization, connected home, advertising, sponsorship and social integration.

The first streaming service to release live, “On Now” content

The second phase of the project addressed how we delivered On Now content and how it existed within modular design system that was already in development across platforms and devices. We considered empty states as a way to onboard and educate users over time, at the right moments. The user is given greater control over when they customize their profile and learn new features. 

Getting rid of commercials for alternative ways to advertise. Designing new revenue streams to create a less intrusive path to monetization.

We brainstormed and tested personalization and new ways of advertising to move away from interruptive commercials and create less disruptive interactions with brands.

Instead of having commercials that users must sit through, we proposed that they use more passive ads - like sponsored trays, collections, and playlists.

The Pause State ad was designed to appear when the user paused content for an extended period of time. It was easily dismissible and would not have audio in order to not distract or annoy users.

Improving the system’s recommendations and personalization through explicit and implicit feedback – and, most importantly, making the algorithm functionality more transparent to people.

We explored various directions and rating systems. This overlay was designed as a flexible template to give the user access to secondary actions and giving explicit feedback. Template would adjust to while viewing contextually-relevant information.

When responding to the prompt of what TV might look like in 10-20 years, we got the opportunity to free explore topics of interest. I concepted for connected home, personalization and customization, and even language learning.

I thought that in the future, companies would be more open to cross-brand partnerships. Duolingo would provide a more active way for people to find and watch content on Hulu – Duolingo could reward users with points or create quizzes based off of movies and TV for a more coloquilal and cutlurally rounded way of learning.

I was also interested in how the livingroom experience could provide a more accessible and visually supported podcast experience – allowing creators to link background images with timelines when making a reference in their show. I also liked the idea of having programatic closed captioning.

Creative Team

Group Creative Director – Byron Rex Phillipson

Creative Director – Dennis Steir

Experience Director – Keegan Rooney, Brandon Applefield

Interaction Designer / Experience Designer – Alex Stapleton

*This was an ongoing project with 15+ Huge, Inc. designers embedded on Hulu’s team. Please reach out if you worked on it and would like me to include your name on this page.