DISCOVERY VR

DISCOVERY / DESIGN, UX, DEVELOPMENT, PROTOTYPING

A self-initiated-turned-company-wide-initiative that started within our small team at Discovery, we tasked ourselves with creating a platform for Discovery VR, Discovery's official exploration into 360° and virtual reality content. Initial offerings covered desktop (spherical videos), mobile (gyroscope with Google Cardboard support), and Gear VR, with future support for Oculus and other headsets planned.

Our primary goal was to inform and engage users unfamiliar with the medium – VR and 360° videos being far from mainstream, it was important users could dive into content as easily as possible. Our second objective was to design with scale in mind as we continuously added and re-organized content.

The initial site and native app launch were met with enthusiasm and excitement, but we were quickly humbled as more user feedback trickled in, giving us clear directives in improving the design and user experience.

I was the UX/UI design lead on the project, responsible for crafting and maintaining consistent visuals across desktop, mobile, and in-video branding, as well as prototyping and working with our team on the front-end site build.

CREATED AT: DISCOVERY
TOOLS USED: JS, HTML, CSS/STYLUS, GULP, FRAMER

Desktop landing screen showing an overview of featured content, shows, and categories.

Desktop inner-pages focusing on shows and categories.

360° video player screen (showing video details).

Explanation of how to watch Discovery VR content.

Interactive prototype of native app built with Framer.

Early motion test for desktop site to explore transitions between states.

Sampling of early desktop wireframes.