Verizon Digital Media Services · 2017
MX Studio
A B2B platform that let Verizon Digital Media Services customers create OTT streaming apps without writing code — designed by me in three weeks, built by a team of four, and demoed at NAB, where it won Best in Show.
Two products, four people, one trade-show deadline.
Research and client interviews showed that many of our partners didn’t have dedicated teams to build native OTT apps for their content. The ask: design and build a B2B solution covering both the customer-facing app templates and the admin system to manage them — in time to demo at NAB and support MVP clients.
Goals were clear: a premium template for clients with HD assets who wanted something more immersive; the features clients kept asking for (multi-channel, live linear, search, accounts, syndication, theming); and something marketing could put in front of prospects at NAB.
TV templates that make content the interface.
Live linear, “up next”.
Schedule as a row of shows, not a spreadsheet.
Navigation that gets out of the way.
Themeable home template.
And the app studio behind them.
The admin side had to make syndication and app building approachable: ingest a feed, map its fields (with warnings when a feed doesn’t follow the MRSS convention), organize content into collections, set subscription rules, and preview pages on phone, tablet and TV.
Feed mapping with inline warnings.
Page builder with device preview.
Subscription rules.
A small component kit kept the admin consistent.
Best in Show — and an honest ending.
MX Studio won Best in Show for Technology at NAB 2017. Then, because of priority shifts, it was cancelled after the MVP and removed from the app store. I include it anyway: three weeks of design across two products with a team of four is a good picture of how I work when the deadline is real.