HBO Max Downloads (2020-Present)
I have led design for HBO Max’ offline downloads feature since the launch of HBO Max. In the summer of 2022, we launched a massive improvement of the downloads experience. We not only vastly improved the visual look and feel, but we also improved status indication, error messaging, and improved the transition from online to offline states. The end result is a downloads experience that is built for clarity and ease of use from downloading to viewing.
Project in a Nutshell
My Role:
Lead Designer. I am responsible for end-to-end UX and architecture and coordinated all research, ideation, visual design, and prototyping activities.
Most Fun:
The micro-interactions involved with downloads. In downloads there are many moments that require careful consideration for how animation can communicate what is happening. From progress indication to deletion-from-lists, downloads is full of small moments where a little intention can take the experience from merely functional to beautiful and clear.
Biggest Challenge:
Airplane wi-fi…or really all of the small ways connectivity can fail. Despite our best effort to track and define all of the ways an internet connection can fail, there are still some tricky situations customers find themselves in where they are not seamlessly transitioned into an offline state. We have tried to design and develop to support all of these, but it is a constant effort, involving testing whenever we find ourselves on a plane.
What I’d Do Differently:
I would have probably fought harder to get an indicator added to the bottom nav-bar to help users see their progress. It got cut for scope, but would be a really nice way to reinforce that things are happening without having to go to the downloads page.
The Beginnings
I started leading the downloads design as we were delivering the very basic version of downloads we launched HBO Max with. You could download and manage videos for offline viewing, but with limited user-feedback and progress updates and a small set of errors to help you troubleshoot. It was the starting point for a feature we knew could (and would) grow to be a highly valued and useful tool for users.
Early Improvements
In the first year of HBO Max we were able to make some incremental improvements to make the downloads experience easier to use, understand, and manage. These included a visual design update, improved empty-state messaging, better status indication on downloading tiles, and clearer-offline messaging.
Responsive Redesign
In 2021we started a major overhaul the mobile and desktop apps to reach our goal of a fully responsive product that would look and work great on any sized device. This gave us the opportunity to rethink how downloads worked and include some strategic improvements. Besides making the experience significantly more visually refined, we focused on a few key areas, including:
Making the transition from online to offline and back as seamless as possible
Improving status updates and errors to ensure users know what to do next
New features can we add to make the whole downloads experience easier to use
We mapped out the end to end flow of downloads as a starting point, and worked with our Product partners and analytics teams to prioritize the improvements that would decrease the most friction and improve customer experience. These included: swipe-to-delete, overhaul and expansion of download iconography, improved offline detection and specific messaging for each scenario, among others.
