Due to my work on an early consumer feature for Getty Images prior to forming the mobile team, I knew that getting the right content would be a key factor in delivering the best experience to users. In the very first strategy meeting with our Product Director, I explained the need to remove the repetitive images that were a working function of our Editorial content. When licensing an image, publishers look for slightly different angles, perspectives and orientations of events to fit their specific format and differentiate their content from competitors. This is vital for licensing but a major impediment for casual viewing.
Other factors also complicated the presentation of photos in a typical search or category grid that needed examination. I had spent a lot of time researching Getty’s multitude of different websites and channels that contained curated galleries and collections. They were an untapped but brilliant resource but the problem that we found was that none of these avenues of content were “plumbed” for our direct access. Working with contacts throughout the company, including the Search and API teams, the Product Director and I helped facilitate a custom recipe and new ingress rating system for Stream’s content. As testing occurred across Stream’s lifespan, quality assurance reviews would prompt various refinements to the process.

V1: Initial architecture

There was an inherent challenge in creating a simple yet innovative experience in a company whose main products are complex and functional. Having an unlimited amount of incredible visual material and a generous amount of autonomy in the project helped but there were still a lot of stakeholders involved that wanted to see immediate results and the pressure to create a product that would be evaluated not only by all of Getty’s executives but Apple’s as well was immense. My first step involved wireframing patterns while working on the site architecture. Paper and click-through prototypes helped balance the presentation of categories, collections and detail views with the actions of sharing and embedding that were required business goals. I was also able to incorporate my own ideas of value adds like the ability to play slideshows of saved material and to use Airplay to project and share with a larger audience. Working hand in hand with our lead developer, we were able to quickly build and test new ideas with Swift and test within our Agile team. As work progressed, the need to create a more unexpected experience became evident. We created a feeling of wonder with parallax scrolling and multi-directional swiping on the home page and used a floating action button for interactions with the individual photos.

Featured release and exceeded download projections

On release, Stream was featured in the app store and returned to focus for nearly every update. In the first week we had 18k downloads and long dwell times recorded for usage. For every update we saw respective download surges and usage activity. Stream was a success and testing and several update releases followed.

V2: Refinements and Restructuring

Despite our positive press, there were a host of usability issues that needed addressing. Our main issues involved the responsiveness in loading the constantly updating streams of images and working through some of the bugs related to working with Swift and Cloudkit for the first time. The novelty of the parallax effect and some of the original elements that stoked initial interest in Stream had seemingly worn off and I had a backlog of ideas that had been deprioritized. We conducted a series of usability studies as I worked to refine the app interface and then moved on to A/B testing of new work.
The new design resulted in a cleaner and more responsive experience. The initial loading screen showed a montage of our best images, creating a more consistent brand experience that we could update at slower intervals, the home page was a more elegant and easily navigated screen, and controls in the streams were standardized. The user control over notifications and slideshow options that I had felt was of high importance were finally added and the experience across iPhone and iPad was more consistent, clean and engaging.
There were several updates to V2 but company priority shifted and I moved to work on the core app and some new website features as a bridge between the mobile and web teams. After that, the opportunity for me to create the Apple TV app for Getty arose. Bolstering the idea of a free entertainment app that evangelized photo journalism and the art of photography while promoting the Getty Images brand, it became a logical extension of the work that I had done for Stream. The Apple TV app, like Stream being the first to use Swift, was one of the first apps using the new tvOS and was featured for over a year in the app store. In the continuum of these apps, my work was featured for over two years by Apple and reached thousands of people, bringing the world’s best photography into people’s lives for free.

BUSINESS GOALS:

• Increase brand awareness

• Increase interaction with non-business (everyone/unqualified) traffic

• Maintain presence in contemporary tech platforms

• Create systems for business and advertising expansion

  
  

My ROLE:

• Product design, content strategy

• UX Design: Information architecture, User testing, Site mapping, Prototyping

• Interaction Design: Interface design, Format research, Visual design, asset management, Developer engagement