Philo: The Starting Point

When I joined Philo, it was a product for the education market, based on physical encoders and local installation at colleges in the U.S.

After signing deals for content with major producers like Discovery Networks and Viacom (among others), the task for our 6-person team was to create a brand new streaming service for any U.S. consumer to access cable channels for an extraordinarily affordable cost. From there, the team would grow a company and a new product.

We started with a web-based prototype, and I worked on the design and front-end code for a set of components, starting with the play button:

I worked through each UI element and the states it would have for basic actions like marking a show for recording:

Together, these elements comprised patterns for other major parts of the interface that I built...

Doing the design and development myself helped speed up delivery, and also allowed me to have a pretty intimate knowledge about the technical trade-offs of each design decision I made.

I worked closely with the CEO Andrew McCollum and the head of Product Devon Williams, to align the design decisions tightly with the product direction.