Hulu with Live TV | Hulu UX Redesign
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Nearly a decade ago, Hulu forever redefined the way people watch TV. Since then, Hulu remained largely the same, echoing traditional ways of search, discovery and watching content – but technology and the streaming landscapes have evolved, and so have people's expectations. Hulu redesigned the experience for the way people actually watch today. To date, people have had to choose between keeping cable and cutting the cord and cobbling together their viewing experience. With Hulu with Live TV, our objective was to design an experience for the way people actually watch today. With Hulu with Live TV, you can watch TV from over 60 top live and on demand channels, including sports, news and entertainment channels. You can also record live content to your personal cloud DVR with 50 hours of storage. Plus, you have access to Hulu’s entire streaming library of exclusive series, hit movies, current episodes, premium Hulu Originals, and more. Hulu can now be a viewer’s primary source of television. Hulu features an easy-to-use, intuitive interface that seamlessly blends together live, recorded and on-demand content. From creating a personal profile to picking favorite TV shows, channels and movies, Hulu makes it easy for you to watch what you love and enjoy a personalized experience regardless of whether you’re at home on the couch or catching up on the go. The more a viewer watches, the more tailored the service gets, adjusting its recommendations based not only on the content you consume, but also the time of day and device you’re using.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Hulu provides an iterative user experience and has been taking feedback over the past year and have made critical updates that have helped live TV subscribers get into live TV programming faster and more easily. Some of these features include a live TV guide and a dedicated Live destination in the UI. We’re also giving users more control over their recommendations, because to us viewers are more than just an algorithm. In May, the UI will roll out with two new features to allow users to have greater control of their recommendations: “Stop Suggesting” programming and “Remove” from Watch History. We have seen live sports shatter our live TV tune-in records game after game. It has been clear that sports are critical to our live viewers, so we built a hyper personalized sports experience across TV — tapping into the passion of superfans, and ensuring easy access for the casual fan. March Madness is one of the most exciting events of the year in sports. That’s why this past tournament, Hulu's Design team provided viewers with a personalized experience in the UI where they were able to go through a team picking experience. Our designers curated artwork that was tailored for each game, along with banners complete with division, team names and rank that stacked as the tournament went on. Picking their favorite teams ensured the games they cared about the most were surfaced prominently in the UI. Since launching our live service nearly one year ago, we have grown our total engagement on Hulu by 60%, and subscriber growth has amassed 20 million U.S. subscribers. We've also applied for eight design patents for various aspects of the new UI.
Who worked on the project?
John S. Couch, Vice President, UX and Design at Hulu, his Hulu Design team and external design agency, Huge Inc.
View the project video: https://hulu.app.box.com/s/vjcu1y3slrk8xodd3w6gjeqbji61q4cd
Hunter Douglas PowerView® Motorization Compatibility with Voice-Activated Smart Devices for a Smarter Home
Company Hunter Douglas
Introduction Date December 1, 2017
Project Website https://www.hunterdouglas.com/operating-systems/motorized/powerview-motorization
Why is this project worthy of an award?
Hunter Douglas, the world’s leading manufacturer of custom window treatments, is expanding the compatibility of its innovative wireless operating system, PowerView® Motorization, to create more personalized, convenient living. This intelligent system allows users to control most Hunter Douglas window treatments via remote control, on their mobile device using the PowerView® App, and now users can move shades to their desired position with a simple voice command. PowerView® Motorization, which is already compatible with popular home automation systems such as Nest®, Logitech® and Control4®, has added leading voice-activated smart devices to their repertoire by integrating with Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant. This compatibility makes operation of Hunter Douglas smart shades easier and more convenient than ever by allowing users to adjust their shades according to their daily routines. The Hunter Douglas motorized system enables users to program their window treatments to operate on their own throughout the day. The PowerView App is used to create Scenes, pre-programmed shade positions such as raising to greet the dawn, readjusting to deflect the hot afternoon sun, or closing at night to create a private retreat. The Scenes can be programmed to personalized settings such as “movie time” or “good morning” which, when activated either with a user’s voice command, PowerView App or remote control, will automatically bring the window treatments to a desired height and adjustment allowing in only the desired amount of light. These PowerView® Motorization enhancements allow homeowners to create their own smart environment that works with their lifestyle and gives them the power to control their home’s privacy, light and heat in the easiest way possible.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
When it comes to creating window treatments that blend cutting-edge technology and high-end design, Hunter Douglas has it covered with PowerView® Motorization, enabling users to move their window treatments to the exact position they want, then control and schedule them whether at home or away. Using the PowerView App, you can control your shades with a swipe of a finger. Or, create customized Scenes that move the shades to positions you set and automate them to operate on their own throughout the day. With the Automations feature your Scenes can be set to operate independently or scheduled to operate with the sunrise or sunset, temperature or other variables based on your location. The Remote Connect™ feature allows you to operate your shades from anywhere in the world using your mobile device. A modern alternative to a traditional remote control, the Pebble® Remote Control allows you to preset and easily operate up to six different groupings of window treatments—individually or together—with just a press of a button. Ergonomically designed and beautiful to look at, the Pebble® is available in ten stylish colors to enhance any décor. The Pebble® Scene Controller also allows you to trigger your pre-programmed scenes on demand. Both are also available as Surface Controls that can be affixed to a wall. The beautifully designed PowerView® Hub connects wirelessly to your Wi-Fi network. It’s the central point of control for all your home’s Powerview® window treatments, storing your settings and activating your Scenes. The Powerview® Repeater extends the signal range of the Hub to carry commands throughout your home. Homeowners have it made in the shade when creating a smart environment that works with their lifestyles and on their terms by using the voice-controlled technology from Amazon and Google or Siri on their iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch.
Who worked on the project?
Scott Stephenson - Product Management, Motorization Ben Madden - Product Management, Motorization Julie Berne - Product Management, Motorization Ryan Daviau - Product Management, Motorization Giuseppe Zappia - Sr. Web Services Developer
View the project video:
IBM Cloud Functions
Company IBM
Introduction Date December 15, 2016
Project Website https://console.bluemix.net/openwhisk/
Why is this project worthy of an award?
IBM Cloud Functions is a programming platform that enables developers to quickly build server-less web and mobile applications, allowing professional Cloud developers to build microservices, transform data, and integrate AI services. IBM Cloud Functions is an enterprise-grade platform that is powerful enough to orchestrate multiple different services at once and dynamically manage machine resources both on and off the cloud. By connecting services together, it can form a cloud application that performs one or more actions based on triggered events. For example, by combining AI services with data, a developer can build a mobile application that can identify a customer's feeling about a product and respond with the appropriate emotion. What makes IBM Cloud Functions great to use is that it provides a low barrier entry into the world of server-less computing, making it easy for anyone to dive right into building their first server-less application. A first time user learns how to do this through a step-by-step guide that will have an application running in minutes. Even developers who are not Cloud technology experts can create a powerful app on their own. IBM Cloud Functions integrates well into a developer's workflow, giving him or her the option to pick a programming language and use their favorite local development tools. A developer can start building an application in the IBM Cloud and then transition to working on their project on their own machine. The tool provides three different ways to interact with it: a CLI, an API, and an easy-to-read UI, making it available for any developer's preference.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
"IBM Cloud Functions definitely has an edge in terms of developer experience." - Stacksense Today, more web developers are using server-less applications in their architecture. Those who are interested in building microservices, and IoT and AI applications are turning to this cutting edge technology to handle the complexity of their apps. IBM Cloud Functions works with all of IBM Cloud's services, including IBM Watson, enabling developers to create robust, secure, and complex applications. It also connects with services outside of the IBM Cloud, so developers are not limited creatively on what they can build. The challenge faced when designing this product was how to make the tool fit into most developers' workflows easily while providing a friendly WYSIWYG. The design intent of the interface is to invoke the code in a playful way, while paralleling the API and CLI experience. Adapting to new models of technology is usually a steep learning curve, but IBM Cloud Functions provides a clear path for developers of different skill levels to understand. Ultimately, developers are driven to use IBM Cloud Functions because it gives them more time to focus on their code and less time worrying about their runtime and infrastructure. They are able to piece together technologies of their choice to create intelligent, complex applications.
Who worked on the project?
Design Lead: Thomas Ortelt Design Team: Thomas Grikschas, Linda Weber, Micah Linnemeier, Morgana D'Almeida
View the project video: https://youtu.be/CzJ5PzdpqMU , https://youtu.be/t8Ao0bmdvQM , https://youtu.be/ad6Wecfiq9M
IBM Cognos Analytics for Storytelling
Company IBM
Introduction Date September 1, 2016
Project Website https://yasminetaha18.wixsite.com/ifstorytellinginca
Why is this project worthy of an award?
The storytelling features in Cognos Analytics provides a way for business professionals to communicate their data in clear and engaging ways. Businesses often deal with a lot of data that have important implications for their operations and an impact on their decisions. While this information may be important, communicating it to stakeholders in a way that is easy to understand as well as engaging and exciting is a challenge. Storytelling comes into play here as it helps shape the data into a context and format that audiences can relate to. Presenting information this way can have a great impact on a business as they are able to communicate with their stakeholders on a more personable level, rather than just reading off numbers or presenting confusing charts. Storytelling in Cognos Analytics aims to reshape the way data is relayed, using functions such as slideshows, infographics, interactive components, automatic visualizations, and more to create a narrative out of a data set or series of charts.When creating Storytelling for IBM Cognos Analytics, we foremost considered how can we help our users tell compelling stories with their data. With a user base of largely business analysts, we realized that our users are not professional story tellers, or at all accustomed to applying creativity when presenting their data. Our main challenge creating a tool for our users to easily build engaging, aesthetic stories with actual data.We ended up with a feature that is cross between a presentation tool and a video tool, including a simple timeline that allows the user to choose when visualizations appear on screen. Users can drag and drop data, shapes, images, and text to create their data narrative. The tool offers prebuilt scene transitions so a user can have a simple slideshow or an infinite canvas for their data narrative. Our tool lets the audience feel like they are being immersed in the story that the data creates.Storytelling in IBM Cognos Analytics allows business analysts to present their data to stakeholders in an interesting way, and also non-professional users to work with data in an intuitive and easy way. This tool brings together these two types of users and allows them to engage with data in a way they never have before. By combining stories with real data, users have the tools of emotional engagement as well as tested facts at their disposal, allowing any message they are trying to communicate to be strengthened. Storytelling at Cognos Analytics gives our users a truly unique capability and experience, as well as brings a focus of design the field of enterprise software.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
The storytelling features in Cognos Analytics bring innovation and a focus on user experience that enterprise software does not usually offer. The innovation lies in the interactive nature of the storytelling tool that enable users to connect with their audience in a whole new way. This tool can have a great impact in the field of business and data analytics. Our users are often experts working with hard facts and numbers that are difficult to communicate to their non-expert audience. The storytelling feature of Cognos Analytics expands on the world of data science in the business and enterprise context, and makes it more relatable and applicable to a broader audience.With precedent and a standard in mind, we began our process with the existing drag and drop feature in Cognos Analytics, where users are able to drag and drop their data into a visualization plane. We built upon this feature to include shapes, images, and animations in the data visualization. This elevated the data presentation from simple visuals to visuals that were able to tell a narrative. These features allow users to engage with a live view of the data, instead of relying on previous tools that only offer static features. Users can view data changes with different filters in real time, pause their story if someone has questions, and actually interact with the data by adding filters, highlighting data, ranking it, and more.
Who worked on the project?
Yasmine Taha, Tedford Chan
View the project video:
Icon
Why is this project worthy of an award?
There are now two types of working Americans: Those who will retire—and those who can’t. The second group, 75 million people, faces a future of poverty and will likely have to work until they die. Why? Because over half of us do not have access to a retirement plan at work—the most popular method of saving for working Americans. Without an employer’s plan, people are left to shoulder the entire burden of the initiation, design, planning, and management of a retirement plan on their own, something very few people have the ability to do. So, it makes sense that only 8 percent of uncovered workers will start to save on their own. These uncovered workers are people you know. They’re our friends, neighbors, children, parents and co-workers. They work for employers that don’t offer plans (85% of small businesses don’t), they’re self-employed, independent contractors, and many are part of the freelance economy who don’t have traditional employer-employee relationships. We’ve entered a new era. Jobs and work arrangements are not what they used to be; the majority of new jobs in the past decade came from alternative work arrangements not full-time employment. And so, the very idea of retirement is slipping from our reach. Icon is the antidote. It is the first retirement plan for everyone not covered by anyone. Icon is a high quality, low-cost retirement plan that’s easy for everyone to use, painless for employers, refreshingly free of jargon, and portable so you can take it with you everywhere you work—even if you work for yourself. It also has automatic features that take the guesswork out of saving, and help people on the road to retirement. Icon includes two products: Icon Plus for employers and Icon One for individual savers. For employers using Icon Plus, we’ve removed all the barriers that prevent them from offering a plan. It costs them nothing, requires no administration, and relieves them of all legal and regulatory burdens. For individuals using Icon One, we’ve removed the burden, guesswork and pain-points from setting up an individual retirement plan. So it’s like an employer plan, minus the employer. Both Icon products were created by a partnership of designers, technologists, behavioral finance experts, and economic strategists, to address this huge social, economic, and national challenge. Why hasn’t anyone else done this? Because most of the companies who offer plans are part of an antiquated industry and business model built in the 1950s that has not evolved to address the independent, job-changing workforce of today. That’s why we’ve assembled a team of experts from outside the industry. They’re united in the belief that Americans should have more than just a hope for retirement. And that retirement shouldn’t be just for the wealthy. It should be for every one of us.
What else would you like to share about your design? Why is it unique and innovative?
Why is our design unique and innovative? Because it’s not just about design. It’s about addressing a fundamental need that wasn’t being addressed, in a way that solves it for every working American: Access to a structured, high-quality, low-cost retirement plan. It couldn’t be addressed, because of another fundamental problem: People don’t trust financial institutions. And, when people don’t trust, they don’t save. Icon isn’t from a financial institution. It’s from a nonprofit organization, NARPP, (The National Association of Retirement Plan Participants) whose only mission is to help more Americans save for retirement. And we partner only with financial institutions who share our mission. Further, Icon counters all this mistrust by being built with three of the most important things proven to build trust: simplicity, clarity, and transparency. So, it’s simpler. It starts by combining the best aspects of a 401(k) plan with the best of an individual retirement account (IRA) to build a simplified hybrid that no one else has ever offered. Especially not to individuals who work for themselves. Until now, these uncovered workers have had to make painful decisions including: evaluating and selecting type of plans, evaluating and selecting financial firms, evaluating and selecting from thousands of funds, then building a diversified portfolio based on risk tolerance, capped by the ongoing nightmare of monitoring and evaluating their asset allocations over 35 years. It’s where the intimidating meets the impossible. So, it’s clearer. With Icon, all these decisions are made easy, in a structured plan, written in plain English, developed by experts who are motivated to help you, not shareholders. Our design principle is to prioritize the needs of the individual above all other considerations. This clear human-centered design approach almost never happens in financial services. So, it’s more transparent. The financial industry uses a product-first approach complete with opaque partnerships, confusing jargon, and painful user experiences, plus hidden fees and commissions. This explains why the industry is littered with failed products, Fintech’s that can’t scale, and historically low levels of trust. Icon makes every bit of fee information easy to read and understand, gives clear guidance on making financial decisions in your best interests, and offers a Financial Academy that helps people build confidence in themselves, their decisions, and in their futures. Finally, we’re out to help an entire generation of working Americans work toward a more secure financial future with something they could never get before: a sensible, workable, well-designed plan. It’s called Icon. And it’s now making retirement available to every working American.
Who worked on the project?
Laurie Rowley, Co-Founder Bill Cahan, Co-Founder Rich Binell, Strategist Alex Rowley, Director Warren Cormier, Strategist Kurt Nobel, Developer
View the project video: