PBS Digital Studios
Informing the public about PBS Digital Studios and its content offering, and helping stations get access to training materials to strengthen their digital production strategies.
I led the redesign of the network’s website, and my role involved Wireframes and Visual Design.
Overview
PBS Digital Studios is a network of educational shows “dedicated to curious minds on the Internet” with 16+ million subscribers and 1+ billion views on YouTube. The Digital Studios team approached me with a few main goals for the redesign of their website. For their viewers and the general public, they wanted a site where fans could discover their shows, learn about what’s new and get a quick snapshot of what Digital Studios is.
With their reach growing at an incredibly fast pace, another main objective of the site was promoting a 17-part video training series in digital-first production, aiming to fulfill a large component of PBS Digital Studios’ mission: to strengthen digital production strategies for PBS member stations.
Users and Audience
The bulk of the PBS Digital Studios audience are young, digital-natives age 18-34 that are interested in thought-provoking content. They tend to view most Digital Studios content on YouTube and Facebook Watch, and are comfortable switching between platforms.
The other persona we focused on for the site was the Station Producer: content-focused staff members at PBS stations who want to develop entertaining, educational, and engaging content but needed advice, consultation and the right resources on best practices for digital production.
Design Process
The design process started with myself and the Digital Studios team nailing down the site’s requirements and goals. We also started whiteboarding a quick-and-dirty sketch of the ideal content hierarchy of a 1-page site.
Overall, the site had to stress that Digital Studios is truly a part of PBS, not just a YouTube network. The team wanted the site to focus on the content itself and the development of that content, rather than the specific platforms. Their wishlist was that the site be simple, to the point, sophisticated, and versatile.
Phase 1 Wireframes
With this foundation in place, I quickly iterated through wireframes for the site. Because the content scope was manageably small, and visuals were of priority to the team, it was best for me to jump into hi-fidelity wireframes sooner in the process.
Visual Design Iterations Rd 1
Once we had wireframes we were feeling good about, I iterated on several options for visual design treatments and look-and-feel. The team loved bright, electric colors — and wanted that energizing feeling of their content to come across on the site.
Visual Design Iterations Rd 2
I iterated through versions of the main Hero area on the Homepage, making sure we got that just right. Ultimately, we landed on combining the geometric shapes direction with the devices direction, striking the right balance in feeling like the vibrant PBS Digital Studios brand, emphasizing their ever-evolving content, and reinforcing their availability across multiple platforms.
Phase 2
Although the team originally envisioned it as a 1-page site, it was at this point in the process that the Digital Studios team had just wrapped a 17-part video training series in digital-first production. As part of the grant-funded requirements of that project, they had find a way to deliver and give access to the trainings to PBS member stations. What better way to distribute than through a newly launched Digital Studios website?
Additionally, we quickly realized that one of the site’s important goals - to tie Digital Studios to PBS’ larger core mission and emphasize their work in partnering with PBS stations - was not being conveyed strongly enough through a 1-page site.
We decided to switch gears to design out a full navigation and site structure. This ultimately gave the site longer-lasting organization that would be better equipped to handle this station content, along with better flexibility for any future updates the team might need.
Final User Interface Design
See the full visual designs on desktop and mobile that we launched with below.
If you’re on a mobile device, access the phone prototype here:
Team Members
Julia Rose (Site Development); Dan Levy, Jess Kasza, and Ahsante Bean (Content)