Every so often, we pass the mic to a member of our Product Design team. What inspires them, what are they watching, a new band they love, a book they can’t put down — it’s all fair game. This month, we’re spotlighting Senior Product Designer and ancient civilization aficionado, Renee Cao.
What is your role at Hulu? What do you work on?
I’m a senior product designer based in the Seattle office. I work on the Design System & Platform team, focusing on the Living Room space.
In the 10 years I’ve been at Hulu, I’ve worked on many features across all platforms and devices. For the past year and a half, I focused on how we use voice control on Hulu to bring the best experience to our user. Those include the voice campaign page, voice tips, and the voice settings page for Alexa. Aside from voice, I am working on components within our Living Room design system and improving our playback experience. …
By Billie Sue Chafins, VP, Software Development and Nick Brookins, VP, Software Development
This July, Hulu’s U.S.-based tech team held its seventh annual — and first completely virtual — Hackathon. For 10 days, teams collaborated remotely to develop projects designed to better serve Hulu’s viewers, solve complex technological problems, and explore exciting new product possibilities.
Despite teams being entirely remote, a record number of Hulu employees and interns participated in the Hackathon this year. Interns who’d never interacted in person teamed up across states and time zones to create some of the event’s most impressive projects. …
Designing for the Living Room
by Dru Sidle, Principal Product Designer
You finish working a long day and you badly need a break, a respite from balancing several projects all with end-of-the-week deadlines. You could go for a jog or clean up around your place, but neither would give you the pause for your mind to recover. So you settle into your couch (by yourself or with a loved one), pick up the remote, and start watching your favorite tv show or movie.
Ahhhhhhhhh… you can finally relax. You even notice that your headspace feels lighter.
What you aren’t likely noticing is all of the micro-interactions that make your experience tailored just for you, the specific button presses you make to watch or learn more about a new series, and the invisible patterns that make all of this possible. By now, it’s a routine that you have developed. It’s subconscious and you do it with ease. …
