OVERVIEW
SOLUTION
CORE FLOWS
TESTING A CODED PROTOTYPE
WHAT THIS UNLOCKS
CLOSING WORDS
Designing for intent requires designing for absence
One of the hardest constraints on TV is that most of the time, nothing is happening. Users are not holding a remote, not looking at the screen, and not signaling intent.
This work reinforced that designing for TV is less about maximizing interaction and more about preserving the passive default while being ready for brief, intentional moments. The system had to work just as hard when users did nothing as when they did something.
Systems age better than features
The original pressure was to “add more capability” to the NPV, but it became clear that adding features without changing the underlying structure would only increase fragmentation and engineering cost.
Framing the problem as a system architecture challenge (rather than a feature roadmap) allowed the team to create something that can scale with video, social, and future formats without repeated rework.
Fidelity matters when testing interaction cost
Using a Cursor-powered prototype fundamentally changed what we learned. Real focus behavior, real content, and real navigation friction surfaced issues that would not have appeared in Figma. For TV, production-like fidelity is often required to evaluate experience quality meaningfully.