To have a big picture of the project, I started to study the project from three perspectives: target users, system's front end (the product), and system' back end (database and CMS).

In addition, the information I collected in this stage can be powerful supporting materials to persuade stakeholders in the following stages. 

Studying the target users: TV users

(1) User state: Being relaxed and lean-back
(2) Primary activities: Discovering and enjoying videos
(3) Users and devices: Relatively long distance; Interacting through remote controls

Mental models for content discovery

I, based on institutional materials and desktop research, learned how users select their interested videos:

(1) Align with preferences: categories, genres, description and etc.
(2) Popularity: are the videos trendy?
(3) Continue watching

Prior user research reports

Studying TCL Channel from the front end: system issues and users' pain points

‍The most straightforward ways to figure out experience issues are to walk through the whole system and collect users’ feedback.

Therefore, I conducted the heuristic evaluation and reviewed the user research reports.

Part of heuristic evaluation form

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Studying the system from the back end: constrains

To know the system in depth, I reviewed the media library, so I understood how the video resources were saved and what metadata I could display for users.‍

Backend systems and stakeholders

Analyzed and prioritized metadata with stakeholders

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Communication with stakeholders: feedback from various perspectives

At work, other stakeholders can always give me lots of insights, so I discuss with PMs, content strategists, and engineers to solicit feedback:

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In the discovery stage, I collected various information, so I synthesized and prioritized insights to convert broad project goals and the business goal into specific design goals.

In the early stage, I sketched ideas and made wireframes to discuss the potential solutions with stakeholders, which can prevent me from spending too much time making high-fidelity UIs. Also, I conducted a competitive analysis to find some insights.

For the product: improved the key metrics and user engagement.

1. Increased the conversion rate from the homepage to video page by 25%.
2. Increased the streaming hours by 23%.

For business: achieved the business goal and increased the ads avenue.

Because revenue was one of my team’s goals, when I designed I need to consider it. The play button on the homepage could be a CTA and the recommendations can let users stay at the play page longer, which can improve the playback time and then increase the revenue. 

For the team: increased colleagues’ work efficiency and enhance collaboration.

1. Because of the new design of the homepage, content strategists can spend less time searching for a poster that has extra text information.

2. After auditing the media library, I revised the API document so the third-party content providers can understand what metadata is necessary for us and what is just optional.

3. I wrote experience reports about TCL Channel on Roku OS and Android OS, and made presentations to share with teammates, which helped PMs find what we can refine in the following product iteration.

Have adequate and timely communication
with different stakeholders.

Communication with my colleagues gives me inspiration and feedback from different perspectives. Besides, it is necessary to communicate with teammates in a timely manner, so problems can be exposed earlier and then I have enough time to adjust my design.

Think about problems comprehensively

When designing real-world products, I learned that many aspects need to be considered. For example, when the UIs change, I need to consider how to adjust the back-end content management system accordingly. I should also consider the different states of a simple feature.

The photos in the end credit to TCL and the overseas product team.
The posters and images in hi-fi UIs are from douban.com and unsplash.
The previous design is by the TCL FFALCON design team.