Search is the bridge between a viewer and everything a platform has to offer. When it works well, it feels like the platform truly knows you. When it falls short, all that content might as well not exist.
Through continuous product owner syncs, we presssure test every recommendation against technical feasibility, platform constraints and business prioirities.
As we align our design decisions, we identified five UX approaches that would scale well and meaningfully improve the experience.
1. Surface entitlemnt to results
Users were dropping off after clicking into Program info only to find content wasn’t included in their plan. By exposing availability (Live, Included, Rent) directly in search results, users can act immediately without the detour. 2. Redesign the search page around intent
The un-interacted search state was an untapped opportunity. Rather than defaulting to altorithmic rails which mirros the homepage. We redesigned the page around how users actually arrive with an intention. 3. Categorize with two-tier filter system
A flat list of results is hard to scan. Primary pills let users filter by object type (movies, series, episode) instantly. A secondary filter drawer then let’s users refine further by genre, live status, and availability, without cluttering the result page. 4. Exploratory search
Not every viewer comes in with a title in mind. Supporting mood, genre, and intent-based queries opens up the catalogue to users who are browsing, not hunting. 5. Failure recovery
A dead end shouldn’t mean a lost viewer. When a query fails, surface relevant rails - similar titles, popular in genre - and turn a zero oresult state into a new discovery path. Recommendation met reality. Here’s what changed and why
Search page
Help me decide stays as the intent entry point. Genre cards are replaced with dynamic rails - personalized recommendations, special event spotlights, and curated content collection. Metadata
Kept simple to protect performance. Each result surfaces object type and release year. Language tagging follows a precise logic driven by Gracenote licensing. English only content shows no tag, secondary language-only content is tagged, and dual-language content surfaces the secondary tag only. Entitlement labels were scoped out, the only additional data sourcing introduced load delay that wasn’t worth the tradeoff.
Filters
The secondary filter drawer narrows to genre only. Entitlement and live status couldn’t be reliability pulled at the search or drawer level - so availability information lives where it can be accurate. Program info. Exploratory search
Not every viewer comes in with a title in mind. Supporting mood, genre, and intent-based queries opens up the catalogue to users who are browsing, not hunting.
Failure recovery
A dead end shouldn’t mean a lost viewer. When a query fails, surface relevant rails - similar titles, popular in genre - and turn a zero oresult state into a new discovery path. Once live, we plan to stress test the experience against real usage - tracking drop off rates, search to palyback conversion, and zero result frequency. Quantitative data will drive the next iteration, informing how we scale the system and refine what’s working.
Good search is never finished. This is version one.