Home Work

Summit: Social Theme for VOD platform

Suitable as an extension of the brand or to serve as a primary selling point, this theme breaks the Video On Demand delivery theme mold. ​​​​​

URL: https://summit.intelivideo.com

Introduction

My Role

My involvement included UI/UX Design of the theme, target research, Front-End Development in HTML5, CSS3, Bourbon.io Neat, Liquid on Ruby with a dash of jQuery.

The Challenge

One size fits all? Not usually.

Most of the original themes offered on the platform were designed and developed for an actual client and therefor specifically tailored to their wishes. More often than not the majority of the clients that Intelivideo was on-boarding afterwards were mostly just retro-fitted on those themes and were hard to customize.

The Approach

Nice to meet you (soon).

Research revealed that the majority of the clients in question were mostly personalities such as fitness trainers with an already active social presence.

With the theme focus in place we found the website standards for these type of clients to be blog like with a very heavy social integration. In order to allow the Summit theme to adapt to their brand some of these dominant features were integrated allowing for the Video on Demand side of their business to integrate gracefully.

Design & Testing

Marching to the beat of its own drum.

With the social integration, and optional features like clickable banners allows for promoting and linking to physical inventory off-site, newsletter integration for building a bigger lead base makes this theme suitable as an extension of their brand or to serve as a primary selling point.​​​​​​​

Testing Performance

User Feedback

During the first client launch on the theme, it became clear through support tickets that users were not sure whether they were logged in or not. The log in link was not immediately visible and it was not intuitive for users where to find it.

Visual Design for Denver based Video On Demand platform: How to grow sales infographic
Before - The Visibility of System Status heuritistic was not honored pre-login notifying users that they are not logged in
Visual Design for Denver based Video On Demand platform: How to grow sales infographic
After - The log in link is visible when the user is not logged in, the account menu is visible when they are logged in.

Conversions

We are currently monitoring the data in Google Analytics and we will shortly implement A/B testing for this theme.

Visual Design for Denver based Video On Demand platform: How to grow sales infographic
Pure Barre on Demand - online barre classes on the Summit Theme

Prototype

Future client meet Summit, Summit meet future client.

The theme is personalized quickly, by uploading a logo, slideshow image and text, updating the bio sidebar with profile image and quick introduction. Once the first product is added the marketing article feed will no longer be displayed.

Give 'em enough hope

With a specific set of features we allow enough personalization for the theme to become their 'own' without a lot of customizing with CSS.

Some of the optional features:

  • Slideshow (when only one image is uploaded it will be a static banner).
  • Custom Banner for promotions or off-site linking to physical inventory.
  • Newsletter Integration collect email addresses through MailChimp form integration.
  • Social Feeds offer integration with Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
  • Custom Text Section explain benefits, compare plans etc.
  • Promo/Teaser Video embed Intelivideo or youtube video.
Summit Theme - Home Page without Products added to store
Visual Design for Denver based Video On Demand platform: How to grow sales infographic
Summit Theme - the home page educates the client about the business of VOD when the store does not contain products.

Summary

Notes

The biggest pitfall with designing themes versus websites is that you don't know who you are designing for and therefor try to solve all the problems with one single theme. But, by focusing on one target segment at a time you can offer specific solutions and more effective themes.

Visual Design for Denver based Video On Demand platform: How to grow sales infographic