Fayve

  • Consumer & Web
  • CNET 10/10 UI score
  • US Patent #9495468B2

Fayve

Browsing built like a movie palace

Sector
Streaming / Media discovery
Platform
iOS · Android · Kindle Fire
Era
2012–2014
Team
Team of 4
Role
Principal Interface Designer · Vulcan Inc.
Audience
Anyone who's ever stared at four streaming apps and given up.

How do you find something good to watch when every service has its own walled garden?

  1. Render-first design earned a patent

    A 3D Studio Max cinematic mockup pre-dated any code and aligned the room on the carousel concept.

    That interaction model became US Patent

  2. CNET, Lifehacker, TWiT, The Next Web

    CNET 4 stars + a 10/10 UI score, a TWiT App Cap Award, and a launch-day Lifehacker review.

    Hundreds of thousands of viewers discovered films and shows in the iPad app before a partner data feed pulled the plug in 2014. The patent issued anyway in 2016.

The brief

Fayve started as a personal tool for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. He wanted a better way to navigate his giant collection of movies and shows, and Vulcan built it for him. The product was then taken public as an iPad app that aggregated Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, iTunes, Crackle, YouTube, and a handful of others into one place. I led every creative aspect of the project, and enjoyed the chance to flex my talents in 3D space in the waning days of the skeuomorphism movement.

The team

Vulcan

4 internal collaborators

  • 1 Principal Interface Designerme
  • 1 Senior Interface Designer
  • 1 Engineering Lead
  • 1 Engineering Manager

Workshops, journeys, architecture

I ran user-journey workshops with viewers, streaming partners, engineering leadership, and Vulcan's executive sponsors. One insight ran through all of them. With so many streaming services in play, viewers weren't looking for a specific title. They were looking for something good to watch.

The featureset that came out built discovery around what's currently popular, what's newly arrived, what fits a mood, and which streaming service the user already paid for. Across multiple "How might we..." sessions I devised the information architecture. A multi-tier carousel (What's Hot · New Arrivals · Fayves · browsing by service), a tile-to-detail-to-destination drill-down, and a shared metadata vocabulary.

Fayve information architecture mind map. A 'Proposed Features' tree branches from a Fayve marquee logo at center, with three Marquee Preset branches (This Week in Fayve, My Network friends, Find A Fayver), plus Detail page and Badges branches. Each branch carries detailed feature notes.

The conceptual model in 3D

The breakthrough came from rendering the navigation in 3D Studio Max before any code was written. A cinematic mockup of stacked, rotatable, drillable tiers, each carrying data from a different streaming partner. The render aligned the room. It pre-dated wireframes. It became the substance of US Patent #9495468B2.

Fayve 3D Studio Max conceptual render. Four stacked rotating carousel tiers seen edge-on, rendered as a dark cylindrical structure with horizontal panels evoking film canisters. The visual that would become the patented navigation method.

Wireframes and the old movie house aesthetic

Working alongside the Senior Interface Designer, I produced wireframes that demonstrated how users would navigate between sections. They drove stakeholder pitches and engineering sprint reviews. Clarity first.

Black-and-white Fayve wireframe. A Genres tab is selected with a TV Shows sub-tab active, an empty grid of poster placeholders beneath, a hover cursor over the 'Once Upon a Time' tile, and a 'Sort by Most Recent' control top right.

Once the interaction model was settled, I set about determining Fayve's look and feel. The project called for an old movie house aesthetic. The warmth of a single-screen cinema, marquee lighting, the texture of velvet curtains. I collected reference imagery that reflected the tone, and the through-line lands in the shipped product.

Fayve mood board collage. Small thumbnails of marquees, gilded movie palace interiors, single-screen cinema facades, red velvet textures, and gold trim. The tonal source for the shipped UI.

Production

Every visual asset for Fayve passed through my hands. I designed stepped animations to articulate motion intent to engineers, including a breadcrumb transition between primary and secondary sections that made the 3D space feel inhabited rather than merely rendered.

Fayve UI asset library. Marquee variations and a 'What to Watch' sign at top, three rating buttons (Worst Ever, Meh, All-time Fayve) at center, Facebook and Netflix login buttons, a 'The End' film slate on the right, and a 'Return to Top' affordance at the bottom.

Stepped animation for engineering. How a user pivots between primary and secondary entities.

Critical reception

Fayve launched November 8, 2012. Lifehacker's Melanie Pinola called it "an entertaining, almost addictive app that spins potential shows and movies in a never-ending carousel" on launch day. CNET's Jason Parker gave it a 4-star Editors' Review with a perfect 10/10 on the Interface sub-score.

"Using a multiple-tiered, rotating carousel-like 3D interface, you browse the app by rotating tiers to the selections you want, then drilling down from there… Fayve offers an excellent way to browse movies and TV shows with an intuitive interface."

Jason Parker · CNET · 2012

CNET Editors' Review screenshot of Fayve. Four stars overall, 8.5 score, with sub-scores Setup 8.0, Features 8.0, Interface 10.0 (circled in red with a 'shocked' emoji), Performance 8.0. The Bottom Line reads 'If you want to see what's playing on all the major online services, Fayve offers an excellent way to browse movies and TV shows with an intuitive interface.'

TWiT Network's Sarah Lane awarded the app her App Cap. The Next Web called it "a really convenient tool for movie buffs." Hundreds of thousands of viewers discovered films and shows across iPad, iPhone, and Kindle.

Read the full CNET review →

What outlasted the product

A streaming partner discontinued its data feed in November 2014, and Fayve was sunset after a two-year run. Two years later, US Patent #9495468B2 was issued. I'm second-named inventor on the four-inventor filing.

The patent describes a "multi-rotor-data-carousel-based graphical user interface" that "efficiently displays portions of the data items to the user." That's the conceptual model I rendered in 3D Studio Max before any code was written, now formally cited as a method for navigating large data sets.

The product had a two-year run. The craft outlasted it.

What I learned

  • Facilitation is the work, not the prelude. The featureset that survived launch came out of multi-session user-journey workshops, not a single PRD. Artifact alignment is downstream of conversation alignment.
  • Visual craft is product strategy. A 3D Studio Max render did the work of a long PRD. Rendering the experience first, before code, is how you align a room when the design ambition is the differentiator.
  • The waning days of skeuomorphism were a great place to learn craft. Textured UI gave designers permission to pour visual care into every surface. That care turned out to be patent-worthy.

See the 20 Year Career with Vulcan chapter of the Origin Story, where Fayve sits in the broader arc of Paul Allen-era projects.

Keep reading

Origin Story chapter

20 Year Career with Vulcan

The era this case study lives in.

Read the chapter