Overview
Yahoo! Entertainment was an app which helped define the iPad experience when it's first generation was launched in 2010. At the time it was one of the most visually rich and immersive apps for iPad. The goal of the app was to bring together multiple Yahoo! properties into one cohesive user experience. In order to help you navigate the content, we created a photorealistic “living room” metaphor and during the exploration phase of this product, we created dozens of living room variations.
My Role
As Senior Visual Designer for Yahoo's Integrated Consumer Experiences group, I was one of 4 designers to design the Yahoo! Entertainment app for iPad. I contributed to the overall visual language and was solely responsible for the Information Architecture of the app.
The Challenge
Yahoo! intellectual properties were notoriously segregated at the time. The Integrated Consumer Experiences team charter was to break down the silos and create mobile user experiences that holistically brought together Yahoo's properties. With Entertainment, our goal was to create a content consumption experience that introduced it's users to content from all over Yahoo!
The Solution
Not knowing much about the usage patterns of a new tablet device we took an educated guess that the new iPad would be perfect for a casual "laid back" experience and would most likely be shared between family members. As such it would probably live in the Living Room so we created an app that could be used as a companion to most Living Room activities. The app contained feeds such as TV Listings, Comics, Video, Podcasts, Horoscopes and more into a photo-realistic living room interface.
