Apple tv app

iHeartRadio | 2015

Context & OPPORTUNITY

Business Goal: Position iHeartRadio as a flagship launch partner on Apple TV 4th Gen and drive new user registrations beyond mobile.

Context: Opportunity to design iHeartRadio’s first Apple TV app, balancing Apple HIG requirements with a cinematic, premium OTT experience.

Challenges:

Navigation across large screens was inconsistent and confusing.
Users lacked clear onboarding to understand iHeartRadio’s value.
Recommendation of relevant content was limited local content, favorite genres, and recently played stations were buried.

Role: UX UI Designer — led design exploration, usability fixes, and cross-functional alignment

Solution & Process

To address these, I led the UX UI design with a focus on personalization and seamless discovery:

Approach:

Onboarding with value: Designed an immersive onboarding flow using lifestyle imagery to highlight iHeartRadio’s benefits.
Recommendation based on customizable genre & local content: Added options for users to select favorite genres and auto-surface local radio stations based on location.
Cross-device continuity: Improved recommendations from mobile to TV—recently played stations surfaced prominently on the Apple TV homepage for quick resume listening.
Apple TV paradigm alignment: Followed native navigation standards for familiarity while adding multi-carousel layouts for richer content discovery.
Elevated brand feel: Introduced layered station tiles that transformed into immersive, animated visuals to create a premium experience.

Collaboration: Partnered with PMs to resolve past TV usability gaps and with engineers to test new Apple TV interactions.

UX exploration

iHR_APPLETV_browse_v7_06_BROWSE_LIVERADIO_title selected.png

iHR_APPLETV_search_v2_03-SEARCH-Text Focused.png

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recently played recommendation — Recommendation: Recently Played

Results

Business Impact:

Featured during Apple TV’s hardware launch — visibility at a critical market entry moment.
Continues to drive ~300K new registrations per month, directly supporting growth.

User Feedback:

Praised sleek design, animations, and ease of discovering recent/relevant content.

Outcome: Delivered a high-impact launch app that elevated iHeartRadio’s OTT presence, achieved the registration growth goal, and set a design standard for future TV platforms.