MTV

Overview:

While interning at Viacom I was part of the product design team working on a new MTV app for mobile. I assisted the team as they were in the beginning stages of redesigning an MTV app for iOS. Additionally, I was assigned to design the UI for the Android version.

Client:

MTV

Role:

UX Research, Product Design, UX+UI Design and Prototyping

Research:

When I began helping the product design team on the new MTV app, dubbed" “MTV NextGen”, it was during the first quarter of their roadmap to have a finished app to launch. The goal was to consolidate their MTV news and video apps into a single app. My role during the beginning stage was to research other news apps to see what made them good and bad. We used this analysis in order to help create a cohesive news and video app.

Sitemap and Style Guide:

My next task was to assist the team in creating a sitemap and style guide for the app. Once the team had organized their user data and understood what the app needed, they asked me to create a digital version of the sitemap we had created on a whiteboard. In addition, they wanted me to help create a style guide using the various visual design elements they will be using for the new app.

Design and Prototyping:

As the team was finishing the designs for the first version of MTV NextGen on iOS, I was asked to design the app for Android while using the iOS version and wireframes as reference. Having already experienced designing an app on Android, the Product Design Director wanted me to incorporate Material Design in the UI. After that, I went on to create a user flow and some animated prototypes from the UI screens. The animated prototype will be useful for the team and developers to understand how the app will functions when in control by a user.

Thoughts and experience:

My time interning at Viacom has shown me how structured and organized the product team was when designing an app. It was impressive how much we got done in such a short time for the first iteration of the new MTV app. This was partly due to the company or department following a more agile approach to design. I watched my team have daily scrum meetings with project managers, designers, and developers to plan out when and what should get done at a certain time. In addition, they would have weekly meetings to discuss and critique what they’ve done on the app with other designers in the department. From analyzing user testing data to planning ahead on what they should do the next quarter, it was a nice experience being part of the team and helping out in any way.