Turning Browsing Into a $260K Opportunity
Philo’s 75,000-title catalog was hidden from prospective subscribers, limiting trial confidence and conversion. I launched a new browsing experience that made the full catalog explorable pre-subscription. The initiative drove a 4% lift in first payments with a $260K impact.
ROLE
Product Designer
TEAM
Growth & Acquisition
SKILLS
Interaction Design
Data Analytics
Cross-team Collaboration
IMPACT
+4% first payment rates
PROBLEM
Users couldn't evaluate Philo, before paying for it
Philo's vast content library was invisible to potential subscribers. Without a way to browse before subscribing, users couldn't evaluate whether the service met their needs, contributing to low conversions and high one-month cancellations.
🔍
No pre-subscription browsing
Potential customers couldn't explore content before committing, making it hard to justify signing up
📉
High 1-month cancellations
Users signed up without understanding our offering, then churned quickly when expectations weren't set.
🎬
Content buried behind login
100+ live channels and 75k on-demand titles, none of it visible to users evaluating Philo against competitors
🧭
No SEO surface area
Competitor's shows and channels ranked in search, Philo had limited pages for search engines to index
SOLUTION
Let the catalog make the case, don't hide it behind a paywall
The solution was a connected system of public-facing browsing pages: All Shows, All Movies, and All Channels. Each designed to lead with large visuals and low-friction filtering, making discovery effortless and allowing the content to do the convincing.
CATALOG
75k
On-demand titles hidden from prospective users
CONVERSION LIFT
+4%
Increase in first-payment rates from redesigned show pages
REVENUE IMPACT
$260k
Revenue impact before the full browsing roll out
Explore our catalog
RESEARCH
What competitors got right
A competitive audit of five streaming platforms revealed a clear pattern: services that led with large, rich visuals converted better than those that relied solely on search and filtering. For Philo's older, channel-loyal user base, familiarity and visual simplicity mattered more than advanced discovery tools.
PRIME VIDEO
Amazon Prime Video
Dynamic tiles, hover states, and trailers. Immersive but overwhelming for our older users.
Rich Visuals
YOUTUBE
YouTube TV
Functional but flat. Relies entirely on its robust search and filtering, with little visual appeal.
Lacks Visual Appeal
HULU
Hulu
Strong visuals and preset sections. Navigation is intuitive but filtering is weak.
Rich Visuals
CRUNCHYROLL
Crunchyroll
Visually dynamic with hover states and varied tile formats. Limited filters but engaging.
Overall Good Experience
PEACOCK
Peacock
Text-heavy and visually inconsistent. Browsing pages lack uniformity, but feel experimental.
Inconsistent
DESIGN GOAL
Drive long-term engagement by making Philo's catalog easy to explore
DESIGN PROCESS
What didn't make the cut
I explored concepts that centered trailers, refined filtering, and experimented with alternative navigation patterns and motion.
Although these directions expanded what was possible, content licensing constraints, alignment with existing design systems, and engineering timelines narrowed the path to what was feasible.
Connect CMS Image fields (Image 1-10)
FINAL DESIGNS
Leading with the content
The new browsing pages give Philo’s catalog a public face for the first time. Prominent visuals and streamlined filtering make it easy to evaluate content across shows, movies, and channels. Each page is designed to build confidence and convert a browser to a subscriber.
User can now browser all of our content, before committing.
SHOW PAGE REDESIGN
Before the redesign, show pages offered limited context and no path to action. Users couldn’t start a free trial or log in. The new experience turns them into high-intent landing pages with clear CTAs, richer content, and stronger SEO visibility.
Improvements include show details, metadata (network, rating, genre), and a CTA to start a free trial.
CHANNEL PAGE REDESIGN
Improvements include larger visuals, improved consistency across pages, and added filtering.
DESIGN DETAILS
INTERACTIONS
Users want to peek into our content to find what works for them.
Final Design
Hover & Interaction States
DESIGN DETAILS
RESPONSIVE
With a company-wide redesign underway, every browsing page was built to adapt fluidly across desktop, tablet, and mobile.
DESIGN DETAILS
SEO OPTIMIZATION
Interlinking all the new pages via nav and footer, created indexable pathways that bring organic search traffic directly to Philo's content.
IMPACT
We saw a conversion lift, before the main feature even launched
Early results from the redesigned show pages and browsing pages validated the direction ahead of the full rollout.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
+5%
On-demand titles hidden from prospective users
FIRST PAYMENT RATES
+4%
Increase in first-payment rates from redesigned show pages
REVENUE IMPACT
$260k
Revenue impact before the full browsing roll out
TAKEAWAYS
What I learned
01
Design decisions are business decisions
Every layout choice had an SEO implication, a revenue signal, or a retention hypothesis behind it. Understanding those connections made me a better partner for the PM and engineering teams.
02
Visibility comes before usability
The best filtering system in the world won't help if users can't find the front door. This project reframed how I think about content strategy; discoverability isn't a feature, it's a prerequisite. You can't convert users who never found you.
03
Cross-discipline thinking compounds
This project required fluency across design, SEO strategy, data analytics, and technical constraints simultaneously. The most valuable design decisions I made lived at the intersections of those disciplines, not within any single one of them.
NEXT STEPS
So we have discovery, what next?
With the browsing foundation live, these are the directions I'd prioritize to deepen engagement and close the loop on full-funnel attribution.
🎯
Personalization
Leverage viewing behavior to surface relevant content on browsing pages for returning users.
📊
Full Funnel Attribution
Track how browsing visits influence trial sign-ups and retention over a 90-day window.
🧪
A/B Test Tile Formats
Test carousel vs. grid layouts to optimize first-click engagement and time-on-page.