Roku Photo Streams
Turn Roku TV screensaver into a personalized, shareable experience with loved ones.
Turn Roku TV screensaver into a personalized, shareable experience with loved ones.
Roku, Inc. is a global leader in TV streaming, commanding over 50% of the Connected TV (CTV) market share. Its native app, Photo Streams, allows users to personalize their TV screensavers by uploading photos via a web app. This feature enables users to display their chosen images on their TVs as personalized screensavers.
As of November 2023, Photo Streams boosted over 340,000 active users and has been activated more than 20 million times in just 1.5 years since its launch. Additionally, it has earned a 4 out of 5 rating from over 13,000 users in the Roku Channel Store, highlighting its popularity and user satisfaction.
As the lead product designer, I led the design, iteration, and launch of this application from ideation to a multi-platform product.
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Photo Streams started with a long-discovered problem and an innovative initiation.
“I want to use my own photos as my TV screensaver”.
With over 80 million users streaming worldwide, Roku TV currently offers limited personalization options.
Early user surveys revealed that many see their TVs not just as streaming devices, but also as part of their home decor and a way to revisit cherished memories. This insight underscores the strong demand among Roku users for personalized screensaver features.
Photo Streams as the foundation for expanding Roku’s social network.
As an entertainment and media company, Roku is continuously exploring opportunities to enhance its business and develop innovative products.
One of its key future visions is to integrate social networking, aiming to build a "Roku community" that brings users closer together.
Photo Streams transforms the TV screensaver into a personalized and social experience, fostering deeper connections with loved ones and driving user engagement.
The goals of Photo Streams are twofold: to boost user engagement through TV personalization and to drive Roku's business growth by incorporating social interaction.
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Increase Roku User Engagement
Enhance user satisfaction with Roku TV by allowing them to view their own photos and share personalized screensavers with loved ones.
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Drive Business Growth
Foster social interaction by encouraging users to connect with friends and family on the Roku platform, paving the way for Roku to establish its own social network.
The Smiths, grandparents to several little ones, wish to use their grandchildren's photos as screensavers on their Roku TV. They also desire to know the latest updates of their rapidly growing grandchildren. However, as their children live across the country, regular visits are not always possible.
How can the elderly Smiths stay updated on their grandchildren's lives without constantly asking for photos?
John's and Kevin's families embarked on a joint camping adventure to Yosemite, capturing numerous photos throughout the journey. Now that they're back home, they want to know if their Yosemite trip photos can be set as screensavers on their Roku TVs.
How can John effortlessly set photos taken by Kevin as his Roku screensaver?
For old Smith...
What I care the most
For John and Kevin...
What I care the most
How might we organically integrate screensaver personalization with social sharing?
"Streaming" is central to Roku's brand identity, promoting dynamic, continuous viewing. To align with this concept, the team incorporated "Streaming" into the Roku screensaver, emphasizing a more vibrant and dynamic experience with Photo Streams.
A "Stream" serves as a central photo collection to which multiple users can contribute. Streams are sharable, allowing all participants to set a shared stream as their Roku TV screensaver.
Users can create multiple streams and share them with different groups, such as a Yosemite trip stream with friends or a holiday celebration stream with family.
By connecting photo collections with live streams, we seamlessly integrate screensaver personalization with social sharing, creating a continuous and engaging experience for users.
Screensaver is primarily a TV feature, but to better meet user needs, we've introduced a multi-platform experience that integrates both the TV and web applications, working together to deliver an optimal user experience.
Rather than creating identical apps for both platforms, our team chose to leverage each platform's strengths. After discussions with stakeholders, I established 3 design guidelines for Photo Streams:
Given that over 70% of Roku users access our services via mobile devices, and the optimal experience for photo uploading is also found on mobile, I am prioritizing a mobile-first approach for the Photo Streams Web App. This strategy ensures the app is responsive and delivers a seamless experience across both desktop and mobile platforms.
Add photos from local devices to Roku Photo Streams
All Streams created are available on the Photo Streams channel, displayed as rows.
Scroll each row to browse photos, or enlarge to view a photo on full-screen.
Preview the screensaver from TV to view favorite photos on the big screen! (Screensaver will be launched when the TV is in idle state.)
Streams with friends and family
Streams and photos
Stream members
Photo Streams supports Google Photos integration, allowing users to easily set photos from their Google Photos library as their Roku TV screensaver.
