Project: Live guide refresh [v1]
Year: 2021–2022
Role: UX designer
Full redesign of YouTube TVs Live guide/EPG on the TV platform. 


Goal

Design a live guide that is visually clean and appealing while meeting top user needs and tasks. Accomodate for searching through 100+ networks.
Top user needs [based on UXR]

*The ability to scroll horizontally to see future programs
*Additional show information available with an extra click or on selection
*Seeing a lot of information with a quick glance at the screen
*An efficient use of space, with rows and columns visible without navigating



Pain points 

*Outdated & cluttered UI
*Difficulty scrolling ahead and down
*Limited information & quick actions
*Not enough information at glance
Challenges

*Live guide is a heavily used page [represents ~45% of watch time] therefore this redesign is very high impact
*The guide hasn’t been redesigned in a really long time, therefore there is plenty of feedback from engineers, pms & the design team
* There are many edge cases, content types, past and upcoming projects the new guide has to account for


Preserve the EPG while unlocking more discovery

Improved navigation through 100+ channels
Improved re-ordering
Introducing p13n, ensuring EPG is predictable
Design for efficiency
and simplicity


Focused highlighted state for more metadata
Secondary actions (e.g. Add to Library)
Less repetition of text
Create a guide that
flexes for upsell and non-live


Improved support for non-24/7 channels
Live upsell for new networks




Design decisions

*Made the guide more compact & scannable, removed repetitive information
*Used the extra space on top for a recommendations shelf and for extra details about the focused cards
*Included a visual indication for things that are in users library (is recording)



*Created faster navigation by including press + hold interaction that gradually gets faster
*Made sure the back button takes you to the right places (beginning of a shelf > top of the guide > navigation)
*Added more ordering options like most watched and A to Z





Impact

*1.9% reduction in paid churn after launching 90%
*Users are 3% more satisfied with the new experience (HaTS survey)
*Presented designs & findings at Google TV workshop


Team

PM –   Kathryn Cochrane
Eng –  Hanfei Sun
            Maya Jergusova
UXR – Sophie Amberkar