HBO Max Parental Controls (2019)
We set out to make HBO Max the most family friendly streaming service. Key to this was giving parents tools to manage their kids’ experience and giving kids a space that was built for them. I was the primary designer of kid profiles, app experience, and parental controls features to support these efforts.
Project in a Nutshell
My Role:
Primary Designer. I was responsible for end-to-end UX and architecture and coordinated all research, visual designs, and design workshop activities.
Most Fun:
I really enjoyed learning about the wide variety of approaches and philosophies of parenting that our users had. Our surveys and interviews highlighted the deeply personal decision-making that goes into keeping kids safe while watching streaming videos.
Biggest Challenge:
Not letting our own attitudes and opinions affect how we approached designing the parent and kids experiences. Since parenting is so personal, we needed to keep our research in the forefront and ensure we were creating experiences that reflected what our users told us was important to them.
What I’d Do Differently:
The only thing I would have changed about what we were able to deliver by launch was the teen experience. I wish I could have had some sessions with teen users, to understand how applicable our kid’s catalog was to their interests. My suspicion is that this is the group that is least served by our Kids profile, but we didn’t have time to fully understand how to improve that.