OUTCOME
Final rounds of testing showed the following improvements
Task Success Increased to 93%
Task completion during testing rose from 67% to 93%, showing the experience became clearer and easier to use.
Group Decisions
Users reported these games would reduce selecting time.
Sharing Control
Participants felt that the system balanced the field.
Home
Featuring recommendations from user watchlists.
Watchlists
Pick or Pass
Vote & Chill
Lucky Wheel
Profile Overview
Reflection and future opportunities
Unify helped transform TV viewing from a passive, leader-driven activity into a shared and engaging experience. By centering collaboration, not just content, the design strengthens the social fabric around the screen.
Customizable
interface
Early testers wanted more flexibility in how features appear. A widget-based layout may better support different household dynamics and preferences.
Clearer game integration
Games worked, but some users didn’t immediately understand where they fit. Stronger calls-to-action between watchlists and games could reduce friction.
View the UX report
Concept
Smart TV concept that makes group viewing more social, fair, and fun. It aims to reduce friction and helps people reconnect around shared experiences.
My Role – Product Designer
I planned and conducted user research, synthesized insights, mapped group behaviors, and translated findings into service and interface design concepts, which I validated through iterative testing.
PROBLEM
TV’s are built for individuals, not groups
Even though TVs live in communal spaces, the experience is still shaped around a single remote and single decision-maker. This creates subtle power dynamics, frustration, and long browsing sessions that drain the social energy out of watching together.
RESEARCH
Webscraping
Benchmarking
Questionnaire
Usability Testing
Expert Reviews
Interviews
Some comments found during webscraping.
What problems do group viewers face?
To understand how groups actually choose what to watch, our team ran interviews and user research with real households. Three themes repeated across ages, personalities, and viewing habits.
Leader-Follower Dynamics
After conducting 10 group interviews, we found groups tend to split into decision “leaders” and passive “followers,” which leaves some people unheard.
Functional, but uninspiring
Through 10 SUS/UEQ analyses, findings showed that users find current popular systems work fine, but browsing feels boring and a bit like work.
Irrelevant
advertising
Webscraping uncovered that current recommendations and ads often miss the mark, especially when people are recommended content they do not have access to.
Concept
Designing features that give everyone a voice
Group
Profiles
Groups can create shared profiles that reflect everyone’s tastes.
Expanded Watchlists
Anyone in the group can add picks to shared lists to simplify choosing.
Personalized Advertisements
Suggestions adapt to individual tastes and watchlist saves.
Content
Games
Lightweight games help groups decide faster without debate.
Further interface refinements led by group testing
Re-Introducing The Hero Image
Users missed the emotional
pull of a large hero image,
so we reintroduced it as personalized, watchlist-based suggestions rather than ads.
Updated the
Navigation Bar
Icon-only navigation created confusion between personal and group spaces. We added labels and reorganized navigation to better match users’ mental models.
Filtering Content by Subscription
Users grew frustrated when results included titles behind paywalls. Future iterations introduce filters that only surface content viewers can already access.
ITERATIONS
Early concepts featured multiple remotes for shared control
Our first idea was to physically distribute control using one “parent” remote and several smaller remotes for reactions and inputs.
Initial sketches featuring a parent remote and smaller child remotes.
But users asked a simple question: “Why not just make an app?” Production cost and complexity confirmed it, so we pivoted.
Switched to a web app to reduce costs and friction
We developed a web app, so anyone with a phone could join instantly: no installation, no friction. This also enabled lightweight AI-assisted recommendation logic without over-engineering the system.
Across three group tests, we saw that users often didn’t understand how to play or what actions were possible. The concept worked, but the instructions didn’t.
We simplified instructions and interaction clarity
We added a short instruction screen before each game and removed misleading UI elements. After retesting, users found the games clear, fun, and genuinely helpful for reaching decisions faster.
Initial screen with conflicting actions.
Implemented a new instruction screen.
Clarified the action instructions.
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© 2025 Libby Wilken