Portal TV

Lead Product Designer
Nov 2018 – Feb 2020

Projects include Core Operating System, Home & Discovery, and Out of Box Experience.

At the end of 2018, the first generation of Portal products had just launched. I was working on AR products for Facebook. Afterwards, I was asked to lead the software design for the new Portal TV product.

People love Portal but hate having yet another screen in their home. People wanted to use their already existing devices but utilize all the great things that Portal has to offer.

There was an obvious opportunity here and we decided to take it one step further. We decided to bridge life like connection and immersive entertainment on the biggest screen in your home: the television.

Portal TV Core OS

Making meaningful moments with the people you love is at the heart of Portal. We wanted to make sure we translated this to Portal TV as well.

While developing Portal TV’s OS, we anchored on three principals: Materialize People, Preserve Expectations, and Inspire Activity.

1. Materialize People

2. Preserve Expecations

3. Inspire Activity

Over the course of a year and half, we designed and developed Portal TV. This was the first time Facebook had designed an OS for a TV hardware product.

I led the design team to create a new OS for Portal that was TV specific and connected to Facebook. I had heavy involvement in shaping our product strategy, roadmaps, and research. With addition to in-house design work, I collaborated with third party vendors and our business team to help acquire new apps like Amazon Prime Now, Netflix, Hulu, and Showtime.

Home & Discovery

Portal TV Home is the jumping off point for people to primarily connect with Facebook Friends & Portal Favorites. Secondarily we wanted people to able to interact with content they love from providers they're familiar with.

We elevated people to the top row. We did this to make a clear statement and stay true to our materializing people principle. People were buying this device to video call and connect with their loved ones.

Co-Watching

Co-watching was a hero feature of Portal TV. It just made sense to connect with the people you love over the content you love. It allows more opportunities to make meaningful moments between you and you loved ones.

Out of Box Experience (OOBE)

In parallel to working on the OS and Home & Discovery surfaces, I jumped over to help push our OOBE experience further and establish a visual language that would be simple, yet unique to Portal.

I worked with the folks over at Buck to create the animations shown throughout the OOBE experience.