By Tim Bleasdale, creative director, Ostmodern
Author:
ContributorPublish date:
Dec 20, 2018
In our digital world of OTT apps, websites and on demand products, it can be tempting to think of design purely as creating pretty pixels'. In reality, the way an end product looks is only a small part of the design process. In fact, it's only a fraction of what a visual' or user interface (UI) designer has to think about during the product design process.
Design is a way of thinking
For example, the ultimate visual layout and implementation of an interface is often preceded by a multitude of creative and strategic challenges, which need to be thought through or designed .
At this point, I need to be clear about what I mean by design'. It's a word that has different, subtle meanings which have evolved throughout the years. Design can mean:
'To make, shape'
To mark out, point out; devise; choose, designate, appoint (14th Century)
An intention to act in some particular way (18th Century)
Or the rather sinister: to contrive, plot, intend (16th Century)
Design encompasses so much more than just:
To plan execute and fashion with artistic skill'
Or a drawing, especially an outline' (17th Century)
It is important that designers not only gather the information they need to make creative decisions, but help others to apply creative rigour to their own thinking. For this reason, we always encourage others to think like designers. This is the idea of design thinking' that you may have heard about. My favourite element (and I believe the most important) of the design thinking' concept is empathy'.
It's crucial to begin with empathy towards everyone who is integral to a products development. This means empathising with and understanding: your audience; the demands of the business; and the people who will help you deliver the product. Understanding their expectations helps to create products which are very close to what all these groups need. This means that after launch, the number of iterations and improvements required to keep a product successful, and to anticipate change, will be much easier to manage. Too many times, I've seen businesses that do not empathise fighting a losing battle, trying frantically to engage their users after the fact, constantly labouring to reduce churn, and always being on the back foot.
Form should follow function
This saying is an old but good one. It is increasingly relevant in the diversifying marketplaces of video content and broadcast.
Looking at the high functioning products in this space, it's tempting to follow what they do as best practice for everything. I hear so many people referencing Netflix, wanting to be the Netflix of this', the Netflix of that'. But we forget that Netflix is designed from the ground up to compete in a particular environment, and if that's not your environment, then maybe you don't need to be like Netflix. In fact, it's probably best that you're not like Netflix.
I'll concede that there are certain paradigms that these high functioning products like Netflix popularise. They offer methods of interacting that people come to understand or even expect. However, that doesn't mean that copying these products feature-for-feature will be right for your business, content, or audience. It's a common myth in this industry that a product has to have every single feature going in order to compete a sort of feature space race. At Ostmodern, we don't follow this thinking. We believe that if you are always following you'll never innovate, and subsequently you'll never fulfil the needs of your audience. You'll never create a standout product. It's also worth remembering that if your aspirations don't fall within what's feasible you may not even be able to launch your product: your product will become the Netflix of lost causes.
The 80/20 approach
This is why empathy is so important. If you understand the expectations of your audience, your business objectives, and any complexities of the build, you'll be able to get the most out of delivering a lean set of features. This leads to what we refer to as the 80/20 approach, which is a nice way of ensuring your product asserts its personality and stands out from the start without breaking the bank or gambling on a crazy feature set.
When developing a new product or conducting a reset, our focus is to launch a product that can evolve with its users in the right direction. However, the key objective has to be that it will just work. In the case of video and broadcast products, this usually means that people need to be able to find and consume the content efficiently. It's the bread and butter of the products we make for a launch product, this is probably what you should focus 80 per cent of your effort on. This leaves 20 per cent of the effort to implement a unique interaction brand and features that differentiate your product and resonate accurately with your user base.
It's for this reason that we always meet and get into the mindset of an audience when defining product strategy. Understanding how they want to be spoken to, and what they really care about, is going to save a lot of time and money.
Where are your principles?
To develop a truly differential product, an understanding of your uniqueness needs to be referenced and reinforced throughout the development process.
This can be done by turning that empathy and understanding into rules or product principles.' Having product principles' which are driven by an audience makes further design decisions easy. Done well, the design process can work as a kind of snowball effect where each individual decision makes the next decision easier. Living by product principles' is t
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
14/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
14/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
14/11/2026
Newest Lenses, Horizon Anamorphic Seminar & Guided Lens Character Experience Highlight Creative Possibilities
At the 2026 Toru CAMERIMAGE Film Festival, ZEISS...
14/11/2026
Sonnet Announces Black Friday Sale on Select Products
Brie Clayton November 14, 2026
0 Comments
WHAT: Sonnet Technologies is having a sale on a select...
14/11/2026
Berklee Alumni Shine at the 2026 Latin Grammy Awards This year's winners included songwriters, engineers, and performers who contributed to acclaimed reco...
13/11/2026
The UIM E1 Series wraps its third season this week with the Bombay Sapphire E1 Miami GP, Nov. 11-14, on Biscayne Bay at the Miami Seaplane Base on Watson Island...
13/11/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
13/11/2026
Singer-songwriter Benson Boone will headline entertainment for the Discover NHL Winter Classic between the Utah Mammoth and Colorado Avalanche at Rice-Eccles St...
13/11/2026
Blackmagic Design has announced the Blackmagic Ambisonic Microphone, a 7th order ambisonic microphone array that captures spatial audio for immersive video prod...
13/11/2026
SMPTE has announced that The Studio B&H and Riedel Communications will provide the video infrastructure and communications technology for the Solutions Hub at t...
13/11/2026
The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) has announced the theme and program focus for the 2027 HPA Tech Retreat, which takes place Feb. 14-18, 2027, in La ...
13/11/2026
Football Manager 27 Touch is available on Apple Arcade starting today. The game ...
13/11/2026
MotoGP has announced a two-year media rights agreement with ESPN covering the Un...
13/11/2026
Apple Sports, the free iPhone app, has added the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to its lineup of supported sports, in time for Saturday's UFC 334. The...
13/11/2026
The NBA and Fanatics Studios, the joint venture between Fanatics and entertainme...
13/11/2026
ESPN held its annual EDGE Innovation Conference last night and offered up an ove...
13/11/2026
Regional sports network gives Ithaca College, SUNY Cortland students a platform to thrive
One of the biggest games in Division III college football will be pla...
13/11/2026
Studer-inspired 500-series PWM compressor unveiled
The HLabs range already includes a couple of Studer-inspired offerings in the form of the PRE169 and EQ16...
13/11/2026
Download Now!
To view the white paper, please enter the following details:
--
First Name* First Name
Company*
Country* Please select your countryA...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Blue Lucy, the workflow orchestration and integration platform for broadcasters, rights owners and localisation companies, today announced an integration with c...
13/11/2026
Krotos announces Black Friday offers on Studio Pro and Studio Max
Brie Clayton November 12, 2026
0 Comments
First-year annual plans start at US$195.99...
13/11/2026
Blackmagic Design Announces Blackmagic Ambisonic Microphone
Brie Clayton November 12, 2026
0 Comments
New 7th order ambisonic microphone with 108 MEMS...
13/11/2026
Meet the Berklee Student Setting Planetary Motion to Music With his compositional platform SoniKosmos, Javier Roqueni aims to make the universe the ultimate i...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , er...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , er...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Share
{alert(Link copied)}).catch(err => {console.error(Failed to copy: , err)}) data-platform=copy_link data-action= class=font-ui-heading py-2 text-sm tex...
13/11/2026
Amagi, the media industry cloud company, today announced a partnership with Golden Times Media Technology (stock code 920021.BJ), a Beijing-based media and tech...
13/11/2026
CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB), one of the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world, together with its Malaysian partner, Cedar ...
13/11/2026
SMPTE, the home for media professionals, technologists and engineers, today announced that The Studio B&H and Riedel Communications will provide the video infra...
13/11/2026
iWedia, a global leader in connected TV software solutions, will present its software-first approach to DRAM optimization at Android TV APAC Summit 2026 in Bang...
13/11/2026
Beginning today, November 13, Apple HomeView is available for purchase at Apple Store locations, on the Apple Store online, and in the Apple Store app in select...
13/11/2026
From pediatric research to smart hospitals, AI is helping care teams spend less time on routine tasks and more time with patients.
Health systems and startups...
12/11/2026
Industry leaders examine how Dynamic Media Facility, Media eXchange Layer, and c...
12/11/2026
The junior Tar Heel is embracing the technical and creative challenges of live production while emerging as a leader and mentor in the control room...
12/11/2026
Gracenote, Nielsen's content intelligence business, has released its fifth a...
12/11/2026
RTL Deutschland will bring the NHL to free-to-air TV in Germany starting Nov. 30...
12/11/2026
Clear-Com supported On Air 2026, a 24-hour student-led broadcast connecting 45 u...
12/11/2026
uniqFEED has opened a Remote Operations Center (ROC) in Madrid, Spain. It is already operational, delivering virtual advertising for LaLiga matches. The ROC is ...
By Tim Bleasdale, creative director, Ostmodern
