Product screens
The product,
in detail.
A look at the shipped interfaces across the Vimeo Streaming platform.
A 9-year journey designing Vimeo Streaming's cross-platform distribution suite — from the initial post-acquisition integration of VHX to a mature product serving creators on web, mobile, and every major TV platform.
Vimeo Streaming had to serve two fundamentally different users simultaneously — each with conflicting needs — on a single product surface.
Before committing to an architecture, I explored three fundamentally different models for how creators would customize and publish their apps.
Every element — colors, layout, typography, section order — fully editable. Maximum creator flexibility, matched by maximum complexity.
One beautiful default. Creator only sets their logo, colors, and content. Fastest time-to-launch, least differentiation across channels.
Curated, platform-compliant templates with guided customization zones. Structure ensures compliance; flexibility enables brand expression.
Platform compliance wasn't optional — Apple, Roku, and Fire TV all have strict HIG requirements. Any solution had to make compliance invisible to creators while still feeling like their brand.
| Consideration | Full control | Locked theme | Modular templates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform compliance | Creator's problem | Guaranteed | Built-in by design |
| Brand differentiation | Maximum | None | Meaningful within guardrails |
| Time to launch | Weeks of setup | Hours | Days — right amount of effort |
| Support burden | Extremely high | Minimal | Low — decisions are guided |
| Viewer experience | Unpredictable | Consistent but bland | Consistently excellent |
The modular App Builder shipped across web, mobile, and TV — each platform treated as a first-class citizen with its own interaction patterns, navigation paradigms, and visual hierarchy.
The creator's primary management surface. Drag-and-drop layout, inline preview, instant publishing. Designed to be usable by non-technical creators with zero onboarding.
Creator-facingViewer-first experience with creator-branded splash screens, subscription flows, and offline download. Designed around the moments between episodes, not just playback.
Viewer-facing10-foot UI adapted per platform HIG. Focused on content discovery and lean-back browsing. Navigation designed for remotes — no hover states, no text input assumptions.
Viewer-facingA look at the shipped interfaces across the Vimeo Streaming platform.
The template system gave creators enough flexibility to feel ownership without opening support chaos. Compliance-by-default was the right call.
We should have invested in viewer-side research earlier. Creator feedback dominated the roadmap because they were vocal — viewers were invisible until churn data surfaced the signal.
Platform app store reviews move slowly and reject unpredictably. Designing for compliance meant building UX guardrails that creators sometimes resented — that tension never fully resolved.
The TV app design held up for years without major rework. Designing for the 10-foot paradigm early — when it wasn't mainstream — meant the architecture was solid when streaming exploded.