Cartoon Network Video App

Idea

To go beyond the typical on-demand experience of most television networks and create a Pandora-esque experience for video.

Early Stage

We knew we needed both an on demand and a Pandora like experience so we had to figure out how to meld the two together. We settled on the bold idea to make the decision for the user and land them on the Pandora like experience and allow access to the on demand area. We called the Pandora like experience The Mix and started designing from there.

We took a room that was not used very often and filled it with post-it notes of features, personas, and early sketches/wireframes of ideas. We then had daily and weekly meetings with various stakeholders to discuss specific features and areas of the app.

Design Stage

UX and Design worked very closely on this project. We spent time wireframing and doing design exploration of the various areas and features of the app. We would review those various stakeholders to get sign off. 

Once we got a good portion of the design in we brought in the outside vendor who was going to develop the app. Ideally, I like to work with a developer from the very beginning of a project but we had to wait until we could bring the outside vendor in as early as they could manage and still maintain our budget.

Development Stage

We had discuss with our developer how feasible our ideas were. Sometimes we had to make compromises with our designs and sometimes we had to push the developer to try some new and unorthodox techniques to accomplish a design.

Our internal design, UX, and production teams worked very closely with the developer to accomplish what we set out to create.

Evangelism Stage

Other areas of the network had been brought in at various stages to provide insight into how this app would affect their worlds. Once we got close to completion of development we really began to evangelize the app and what we created across the network. Buy in was fantastic and other departments began to rethink how they would work in the future to support the success of the app.

Launch

The app launched on July 3rd and was a huge success. We increased video plays and time spent in the app by significant margins. The success has continued to be much larger than it was with the previous iteration of our flagship app. We continue to work on updates and improvements to roll out to enhance our users' experiences with the app.