Crunchyroll
is kinda like Disney for anime (Japanese animation).
video credit to the amazing Bill Bergen
Overview
Over 120 million anime fans around the world use Crunchyroll to stream their favorite series and movies on TV, web, and mobile (iOS & Android). Crunchyroll also creates, licenses, and distributes merchandise, games, live events, and more.
My role
I joined Crunchyroll as a Senior Product Designer focused on our internal tools. I grew into Lead Product Designer for TV, and later Design Manager with six direct reports serving over 5 million paying subscribers and 120 million users across Web, Mobile, and TV experiences.
Heads up! This is not a deep case study.
Due to NDAs, I can't dive into too much detail about my work here. Feel free to reach out if you're curious to learn more.
I helped with
Creating Crunchyroll 2.0
The opportunity
Crunchyroll was born in 2006, back when Blockbuster was still a thing (RIP) and Netflix mailed DVDs. By 2018 Crunchyroll was serving over 50 million fans while relying on a lot of legacy (really old) system architecture. This made it challenging for devs, designers, and fans to meaningfully engage with Crunchyroll. It was time for an upgrade.
What I Did
I initially served as both Lead Designer for TV experiences as well as Design Manager for our US-based product designers across web, mobile (iOS & Android), and TV.
I partnered with Research, Product, and Engineering leadership to define and share our vision and objectives for Crunchyroll 2.0 and ensured our designs, scope, and roadmaps were user-centered, data-informed, and considerate of the entire product ecosystem (streaming apps, merchandise, physical events, social, etc).
It's Alive!
After two and a half years and a lot of research, workshops, design reviews, prototypes, and user testing, we launched our new Crunchyroll Beta experience in 2020 on Web, Mobile, and TV devices.
I Also helped with
Leading TV Design
Crunchyroll's TV Experiences team covers a lot of ground. We designed and delivered over 14 apps across a variety of devices, including but not limited to:
Design Lead
TV Experiences
I served as Lead Designer for TV experiences before promoting the amazing Alicia Kawamura to take my place.
I partnered with diverse teams and stakeholders to launch 14+ new apps across a variety of devices.
I also helped create and maintain new design systems to improve our team's consistency, collaboration, and output.
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