VIDAA U Smart TV Platform

VIDAA U is a Linux based Smart TV Platform used on millions of Toshiba, Sharp, and Hisense TVs

My Role

AVP of Product Design, Product Owner, Project Lead, Interaction Design Contributor

The Challenge

The Goal

Our original Android based platform was a massive success in China, but for international markets using Android came with too many restrictions and fees. Hisense desperately needed a propriety TV platform that it could monetize and use for its many international markets.

Create a brand new TV platform that would be easily customizable, fully featured, and retain the key VIDAA DNA that customers loved.

The Process

The first step was deciding on the technology. This was a task carried out in unison with the development teams. They were given designs for a basic proof of concept to build using various technologies. This allowed us to assess the performance and understand the limitations for each technology. Together we decided on using a Linux/Opera combo as our starting point.

While development was testing technologies, the design team defined the themes and strategies to follow moving forward.

Next was the part of the process that most designers enjoy. It was time for me and my team to come up with concepts. Each concept would be initially assessed based on its visual appearance as well as it's navigation patterns. Prototypes were created for the strongest designs so that we could asses usability and ease of navigation.

Concepts

The Design

Ultimately we settled on a design that provided an extremely easy to use, yet fully customizable interface.

As always, I worked with Project Management to create a delivery schedule that could support development as well as allow the visual designers to fine tune the design while the interaction design was being delivered.

VIDAA U was complete. Here is a small sample of the final design.

One of the most loved features on VIDAA U was the ability to customize the launcher to suit your own needs. I pushed hard to include this feature, as it was one I felt strongly about. I was very pleased with the final result, and so were our customers.

The Result

VIDAA U launched successfully in North America in 2016. It's simple interface and easy back end customization made it perfect for international markets.

VIDAA U is currently being used on over 10 million Smart TVs world wide!

After the success of our 2016 launch, I worked with my team on subsequent releases for both Sharp and Toshiba.