HBO Max Project

HBO Max is a stand-alone streaming platform that bundles all of HBO together. For my design college course, I was tasked with designing a new feature to better user experience. I took the opportunity to take a solid platform and marry party interface found on gaming services such as PlayStation and Xbox. HBO Max will be the first TV streaming service to marry TV at home and social media creating new opportunities for connectivity.

Course: WWU Design 310: Principles Interaction of Design

The Task: How do I design a feature to connect friends and family located in different places?

How? Find current user pain points and create a solution through research and prototyping.

Target Users: Current and potential users.

My Role: I was responsible for the entirety of this project from start to finish.

Responsibilities: Empathize with users, define, ideate, prototype, and test possible solutions.

Process: I started out with product research, competitor benchmarking, objectives, and hypotheses. Then conducted interviews, created personas, created surveys, analyzed the feedback, and user journey maps. From there I continued the path of research and created how might we’s, goals, and product statements. I then moved into site mapping, user task flows, wireframing, prototyping, and multiple usability test forms. From feedback, I was able to adjust my prototypes for class peer reviews. I then finished the project with problem/solution statements, and project reflection. 

Problem Statement: HBO Max is a solid TV streaming platform. Through research, I discovered the desires and pain points of HBO Max users. The ones that stuck out to me the most were:  a way to customize their experience, a more affordable bundle, and a way to connect with friends and family. Overall, I did not receive negative feedback in my surveys on the current HBO Max application look and feel. As a result, I decided to add a new feature that addressed one of the desires: connectivity.

Challenges and Reflection: One of the biggest challenges that I faced was coming up with a new concept. A new feature can be designed in many ways, and none of them are technically incorrect. However, I wanted to incorporate my knowledge of psychology into the design to make it clear and user-friendly.

Moving Forward: My next steps would be to enhance the usability of the prototype, clean up the friend list and design how GroupWatch would function.

Wireframe, low-fidelity prototype, first high-fidelity draft and high-fidelity prototype.