Work / Reelgood Mobile app
Work / Reelgood Mobile app
Making Streaming Easier with the Reelgood App
Making Streaming Easier with the Reelgood App
2X WINNER
'19, '23 THE Webbys
App of the day
2020 App Store
Most innovative
'20, '21 Fast Co.
2X WINNER
'19, '23 THE Webbys
App of the day
2020 App Store
Most innovative
'20, '21 Fast Co.
2X WIN, 6X NOM.
THE Webbys
App of the day
2020 App Store
Most innovative
'20, '21 Fast Co.
Role
Head of Product and Design
Date
2015-2024
Company
Reelgood
Role
Head of Product and Design
Date
2015-2024
Company
Reelgood
Reelgood is the leading streaming guide in the U.S. Helping millions of people find what to watch and where to watch it.
As founding designer and later Reelgood's Head of Product and design, I took Reelgood from pre product to 5M monthly users across our mobile apps, web app, and connected TVs. I contributed as an IC and managed designers, PMs, and even engineers. Our goal: to make streaming easier.
Reelgood is the leading streaming guide in the U.S. Helping millions of people find what to watch and where to watch it.
As founding designer and later Reelgood's Head of Product and design, I took Reelgood from pre product to 5M monthly users across our mobile apps, web app, and connected TVs. I contributed as an IC and managed designers, PMs, and even engineers. Our goal: to make streaming easier.
Millions use Reelgood to find what to watch across 200+ streaming services.
When we started, no one cataloged every streaming service, so we did it ourselves. Letting users browse recommendations, genres, and filter to find just the right show or movie no matter where it's available.
Millions use Reelgood to find what to watch across 200+ streaming services.
When we started, no one cataloged every streaming service, so we did it ourselves. Letting users browse recommendations, genres, and filter to find just the right show or movie no matter where it's available.
Eliminates the need for multiple watchlists and continue watching.
Reelgood let users keep one watchlist of all their shows and movies so they never missed an episode and got notifications when things they wanted to see landed on one of their streaming services.
Eliminates the need for multiple watchlists and continue watching.
Reelgood let users keep one watchlist of all their shows and movies so they never missed an episode and got notifications when things they wanted to see landed on one of their streaming services.
Everything needed to decide: ratings, reviews, cast, trailers, and more.
Once people find an interesting recommendation, Reelgood has all the info they need to see if a title is a good watch for them.
Everything needed to decide: ratings, reviews, cast, trailers, and more.
Once people find an interesting recommendation, Reelgood has all the info they need to see if a title is a good watch for them.
Plays any movie or episode to connected TVs and has integrated remotes.
Once they've found what to watch and where to watch it, Reelgood finishes the job by playing straight to a connected TV and placing a remote in their hand to control it. Patent Pending.
Plays any movie or episode to connected TVs and has integrated remotes.
Once they've found what to watch and where to watch it, Reelgood finishes the job by playing straight to a connected TV and placing a remote in their hand to control it. Patent Pending.
TO VIEW THE FULL CASE STUDY, USE A TABLET OR DESKTOP.
SORRY BUT IT'S BETTER THAT WAY, TRUST ME.
DISCOVERY
Research showed people spend 20+ minutes finding things to watch.
Opening service after service hunting for new things or checking their continue watching for new episodes was timely. Beyond that, when the services failed to deliver something good they took to other methods - looking at blogs and IMDb for example - and then had to open each service to see where it was available. Below is a rough chart of how people were finding things to watch - many of them eventually giving up and rewatching "The Office" or similar comfort TV.
Flow chart of common paths people took to finding things to watch - only to be blocked by not being able to find where to watch it.
Flow chart of common paths people took to finding things to watch - only to be blocked by not being able to find where to watch it.
Top Survey Responses for biggest frustrations with streaming
Top Survey Responses for biggest frustrations with streaming
People needed a better way to find things to watch across all their services.
Beyond talking about how people found what to watch, I also talked to them about the general frustrations with streaming. People talked openly about slow internet speeds and other issues out of a small startup's control but things like not being able to see everything in one place and not being able to find good things to watch were the most common issues.
in the streaming age, Finding things to watch is a 3 part problem…
What to Watch
What to Watch
Ultimately about finding the right things for the right time. Finding new things, seeing what's popular and trending, checking critics and audience scores, watching trailers, reading reviews, and getting friend's opinions all topped these needs.
Ultimately about finding the right things for the right time. Finding new things, seeing what's popular and trending, checking critics and audience scores, watching trailers, reading reviews, and getting friend's opinions all topped these needs.
Where to Watch
Where to Watch
A new problem to most in 2015, the proliferation of streaming services and having access to more than one split discovery from the platforms that had the content, leading to the search for the thing they want to watch across multiple services.
A new problem to most in 2015, the proliferation of streaming services and having access to more than one split discovery from the platforms that had the content, leading to the search for the thing they want to watch across multiple services.
Watching & playback
playback
Similar to finding where to stream something you want to watch another issue is now around connectivity. Does my TV/laptop/phone have this app? Is my internet fast enough? Can I cast it from my phone or watch it on a mobile device?
Similar to finding where to stream something you want to watch another issue is now around connectivity. Does my TV/laptop/phone have this app? Is my internet fast enough? Can I cast it from my phone or watch it on a mobile device?
Where to Watch
WHERE to watch was the biggest unsolved pain point in the Journey
Many tools could tell you what to watch (IMDb, listicles, and various movie and TV discovery apps) but with the exception of browsing each streaming service (which many users said they found limiting) all paths of discovery now had this "where do I watch this?" conundrum. With new services launching constantly, both users and the industry at large were in desperate need of solution.
Select your services first - then no matter what looks good, you can always watch it.
A simple idea - but revolutionary at the time. Not to mention that all this data needed to combine the catalogs didn't even exist. We had to build it ourselves through a cobbling together of APIs and some serious data pipeline management. Shout out to our epic engineers and couple very smart architectural decisions that made our database the best in the world.
What to Watch
"We are the dumbest versions of ourselves when deciding what to watch"
- Me
People always told us that finding what to watch was hard - yet there is more high quality TV and movies than ever before and more markers of quality (i.e. scores, taste matches, etc.) and access to critics opinions than ever before. So what's so hard? It's mostly that we try to find things to watch at a difficult time. We're tired, we've spent our busy day making constant decisions and have used up all our analytical faculties. Then we're ready to turn off, escape, and be entertained and instead we're left with endless thumbnails to go through and apps to open to find something to watch (often while our food is getting cold).
"We are the dumbest versions of ourselves when deciding what to watch"
- Me
We're tired, we've spent our busy day making constant decisions and likely have used up all our analytical brains. Then we're ready to turn off, escape, and be entertained and instead we're left with endless thumbnails to go through and apps to open to find something to watch (often while our food is getting cold).
How mobile allows for people to "graze" on streaming content throughout the day.
Mobile focused: It's familiar and it makes it possible to decide BEFORE you hit the couch.
I wanted to focus on the mobile app as it eliminated a lot of common pain points like having to use unfamiliar or clunky TV UIs. More importantly, it also allowed people to "graze" on content throughout the day - picking things to watch before they're on the couch with food getting cold. This allowed for decisions to be shifted away from the "dumbest" part of the day and let users optimize their watching by bumping into good things to watch earlier in the day.
We're aggregating Content - let's aggregate the UI as well…
I broke down all of the popular services and how they handled discovery.
I wanted to leverage the fact that most of our users were going to be familiar with the UIs of the top services (Netflix, Prime, Hulu, etc.). So I studied each of them, how they structured their nav, how they made interactions easy and intuitive. I took the best of them and put it together. The ultimate compliment we got from early users was "Oh, this looks like Netflix, but it's for every service." This helped reduce cognitive load as we introduced a new discovery method to frustrated streamers.
Our information architecture breakdowns of the various streaming services
Reelgood's familiar discovery experience is paramount to reducing cognitive load at the end of the day.
Looks like most streaming services, making nav. easy
Simple labeled buttons, familiar things like IMDb scores
Dead simple search w/ streaming service right on the poster
Big familiar filter options to make it fast and easy
Watching & Playback
something to watch ✅
know where to watch it ✅
now… watch it.
something to watch ✅
know where to watch it ✅
now… watch it.
Just being a what to watch directory wasn't good enough - so we leveraged deeplinks to take users straight to the content.
As Reelgood had developed its own understanding of the streaming catalogs through data collection and processing, we had a unique position with episode and movie level links for nearly every service. Allowing us to finish the job when on mobile devices or web.
a solid v1 but only 20% of people used those links to watch.
A solid V1 but only 20% of people used those links to watch.
75% of our users were using Reelgood to find what to watch and where to watch, then opening it manually on their TVs.
So we built a patent pending system to directly play content to various connected devices.
Born from a user problem, a business opportunity, and a well timed hackathon we developed Play to TV which allowed for people to launch content to Rokus, LG, and Android smart TVs. Complete with built in remotes.
Success
with reelgood, people found something to watch in just 2 minutes, not 20.
with reelgood, people found something to watch in just 2 minutes, not 20.
fastest growing
6 Mo retention
App rating
PLAY TO TV
2X WINNER
to watching
MOST INNOVATIVE
RAISED
APP OF THE DAY
shout outs
Rome wasn't built in a day - years of working with users and super dedicated developers made it possible
Special shout outs to Douwe Bos (lead iOS engineer), Pablo Lucio Paredes (head of data), Jarrod Spaans (data engineer), and Damien Capocchi (lead backend engineer) who were amazing collaborators across over 80 versions of the app to make it the best what to watch solution for frustrated streamers.
Rome wasn't built in a day - years of working with users and dedicated developers made it possible.
Special shout outs to Douwe Bos (lead iOS engineer), Pablo Lucio Paredes (head of data), Jarrod Spaans (data engineer), and Damien Capocchi (lead backend engineer) who were amazing collaborators across over 80 versions of the app to make it the best what to watch solution for frustrated streamers.
