overview

Play Movies & TV iOS Redesign

Play Movies & TV is Google’s source for movie & show streaming. The iOS platform didn't drive enough revenue for allocation of any resources aside from general upkeep. However, upon discovering that it's percentage ratio for users to playback was huge, light resources were given to revamp it for its primary users.

Roles

Lead Designer
‍UX/UI Redesign
Design Strategy
Delivery Strategy
Developer Relationships
Cross Org Collaboration

Team

UX Researcher
PM
Team Leads
Material Team
Data Analyst

YEAR

2019

context

Understanding the platform's value

iOS wasn't very plentiful for the Play Org, as transactions weren't available on the app store. However, it was still valuable. Analytics and the team uncovered that the user base to playback ratio was huge.

1%

Of all Play Movies & TV users were on iOS

=

8%

Of ALL playback, from ALL platforms

Users would use their Android or OEM devices to purchase content, then use their iOS device to playback their purchased or downloaded content.

Looking into platform usage, 53% of iOS playback was on iPad and 43% of playback was offline.

With that knowledge, a redesign project was born to improve our iOS experience for our iOS users.

process

What I started with

It had been a while since any design updates - only supportive maintenance.

Home/Discovery
Detail page
Library
Page navigation

Guiding principles

Don't impede playback.

Give power of content.

Get to what's important, faster.

Limitations

The effort & time allowance for the iOS Redesign was minimal which heavily restricted any large changes... at least for version one.  

To deliver the redesign on time, the discovery experience was dubbed low priority by leadership and was removed during the redesign. This meant we also took out any features or functionality that promoted purchase.

Removal of content discovery
Limited support, time, and bandwidth

Remember future plans

There were loose plans to re-incorporate content discovery later. To reduce future effort, it was decided we’d keep features that would make the transition easier.

There were also efforts to include Ad-supported-video-on-demand to the Android client. I needed to strategize a design that would accommodate Ad-supported-video-on-demand as a potential content discovery replacement on iOS.

Add content discovery back in... eventually
Lay the foundation for future client features

MVP Deliverables

Home/Discovery
Detail page
Library
New illustration style

Pushing beyond MVP

There were so many ways to better reach project goals and align with principles. I came up with a variety or additional directions & features, should more bandwidth became available. 

We were shifting our model from transactional to consumption. Thus, I needed to rethink our primary interactions and information hierarchy to accommodate consumption-based needs.

Transactional needs

Detailed content info for purchase evaluation

Personalized purchase suggestions

Optimized content discovery feed

Consumption needs

Continue watching & watch history

Cross-device syncing

Library management

Downloads & device storage

~Downloads tab

“I want to download my content but need to see if I have enough room on my device”

42% of iOS users watched content offline, the ability to both shortcut to and manage downloads would improve a user’s ability to get to their content faster.

A download tab is also a great solve for offline mode. 

*Although iOS has a large iPad user base (53%), explorations will be shown in mobile.

Downloads tab
Show level

~Library filtering

“It’s hard to navigate through my library to find what I need”

Since local search wouldn’t be available for a while, filters would’ve been the next best thing. Play Books already had a filtering component system that we could utilize.

Play Books library - Filters
Play M&TV library - Filters

~Hide content(archive)

“I don’t want certain content in my library anymore”

Even in native Android, users were begging to be able to archive content. Native iOS could lead as a solution. 

Archiving would give power to users with older or “embarrassing” content. Retrieval of archived content would be accessible on
the Play Store. 

Library - “More” icon
Bottom sheet - “Hide”

~Detail page restructure

“I want the detail page to cater to my watch state and give me cues on my watch progress”

If we’re focusing on user’s WATCHING needs, our detail page hierarchy should reflect that rather than emphasising purchase-based data. Re-organizing the detail page hierarchy would get the user to their content faster. 

This layout is similar to Youtube’s, which is built specifically for fast playback interaction.

Movie detail page - MVP
Movie detail page - Beyond MVP

~Portrait playback

“I like to see details about the content I’m watching”

“I don’t want what I’m watching to be easily visible to others when I’m publicly commuting to work” 

“If I’m not super focused on what’s playing, I don’t need it to take up the whole screen”

Portrait playback was proven to be an impactful playback feature that solved for many user frustrations on Android.

Detail page - Press “Resume”
Cast controller & playback hybrid

~Resume play options

“I want to know how far into a show/movie I am before I continue watching it”

“If I’m not super focused on what’s playing, I don’t need it to take up the whole screen”

Be more helpful with language like updating “Play” to “Resume” when playback has been initiated. 

Add an option to “Restart” content playback.

Movie detail page
Show detail page

~Library shortcuts

“I have a huge library and want to watch something, but it’s overwhelming to look through such a huge list of options”

Whale users have huge libraries(100+). Giving them suggestions from their own libraries to make the most of their entitlements would prevent decision stress and help them get
to what they want faster.

Home tab - library suggestions
Detail page - Complete series cluster

Fulfilling V2 consumption proposals

Home tab - Library shortcuts
Download tab
Detail page restructure
Item menu - Archive

Library-first variant proposal

“I never purchase content frequently enough to have a recents list on the home tab. I just immediately navigate to my library.”

Home tab - library & continue watching