Off the top of your head, how many subscriptions to streaming services do you have? Maybe the list goes on and on or maybe you are paying for some that you don’t even use! Whatever the case may be, sometimes it might be hard to find something new to watch. So, what does any regular person do? They start bouncing around on different platforms trying to find the right show to watch. If you ever find yourself doing this, let me introduce you to a free streaming platform that has hundreds of your favorites. PlutoTV is an ad-supported streaming service that supplies its viewers with Live TV and On Demand options, with the layout of the platform being reminiscent of old tv channels and guides. One of its main features is that it has a lot of nostalgic content from older tv shows as well as popular new movies, making it a perfect option for when you don’t know what you want to watch.
For this redesign, my goal was to fix PlutoTV’s issue of keeping new users on the platform and aid them as they discover new shows and movies to watch. As consumers become unhappy with their current paid streaming services, they resort to find free options that have what they want to watch, one of these options being PlutoTV. However, when users first land onto the platform, they are immediately bombarded with the Live TV option already taking over their screen and playing something random. After conducting user interviews about the current status of the platform, each interviewee agreed that it was overwhelming to see initially and found that it was hard to truly explore what PlutoTV has to offer due to the lack of recommendations. The formatting of the Live TV page also heavily relies on the user to understand the visual language of old TV guides, leaving younger audiences to feel lost and less likely to stay on the platform. To aid with this problem, I designed a new homepage to act as an exploration zone for new users to see what PlutoTV has to offer.
Using a common layout design from popular streaming platforms, PlutoTV’s new homepage combines its Live TV and On Demand features into one organized page for users to look through and explore. The rotating tv shows and movies at the top are meant to give the user a brief introduction to what PlutoTV has to offer, with the first option being part of Live TV. As users hover over the live channels, they are able to see what is currently playing and how long the tv show or movie has been running. Other entertainment options are listed in categories along the home page to give users more options to explore before choosing an option. In addition to encouraging users to explore through the homepage, I also redesigned the TV Show and Movie page to match the new aesthetic of the homepage and to add a “related” section for viewers to continue exploring PlutoTV’s options. Through these simple changes, new and returning users of PlutoTV will have the confidence to explore the platform and discover a new show to watch, leading to a higher percentage of users staying with the platform and feeling satisfied with PlutoTV.
03/16/25 Note: Funny enough, after going back to PlutoTV since working on this, they have actually added a home page to their platform! The design is a bit different from mine, but the basics are there to help users explore the platform. They still don't have a related section though!