• Many competitor examples of intragrid spotlight units tend to opt for displaying content items in a carousel format vs displaying pagination controls like many examples we've seen of hero marquees.
• These nested carousels are often recycled carousel components already seen throughout the rest of the discovery experience.
• Surfacing multiple content items at this level (within the unit) can give users a clearer understanding of the type of content they will find in this collection before committing to exploring further. This follows the same logic that has proven successful at Paramount+ as far as why we surface content in a carousel format throughout our discovery experience.

• Competitors consistently rely on pagination controls in the hero marquee, forfeiting the discovery signal that peeking content UI provides. Showing the next title creates an implicit invitation to explore while showing a dot count does not.
• Peeking content patterns reduce cognitive load by replacing an abstract count with a concrete glimpse of what is next, turning a passive indicator into a discovery prompt.

• Phase 1 consisted of a test focused specifically on measuring the impact of the "peek ahead" UI to track any changes in CTR, % of new content discovery, minutes watched, and video plays.
• Marquee Content Discoveries: +26%
• Marquee Video Mins: +17%
• Marquee CTR: +15%

• The sizing of the posters peeking off the right edge of the viewport needed to be thoughtfully considered to avoid them invading the safe zones of the background artwork while also keeping large enough to be legible from 10ft away.
• The difference in overall sizing of the active poster on the left and the peeking posters on the right needed to be distinct enough to easily identify the left poster as the active item
• The active poster needed a clear visual treatment that affords a selection interaction as an entry point into the content while visually separating it from the left peeking poster

• Given we had no predefined visual patterns in our mobile app design system for a "peek" UI, I had to start from scratch
• Challenges centered around establishing a mobile "peek" UI while maintaining the rich, full view artwork background that was a foundational part of our design system
• The peek element needed to be clearly legible against the background artwork which led to explorations involving color extraction and filter effects to achieve a card overlay that allowed natural colors from the artwork to come through without compromising accessible.

• The background module was the most complex part of the design to translate into code as this included a filter effect that involved reflecting the edges of a background image around its perimeter.
• The background image transformation scales it to match the width the card in the foreground, meaning we needed to create a visual effect that makes the scaled artwork appear like it's filling the viewport when it actually is not.

• I worked closely with developers throughout implementation to establish specs that could dynamically apply a blur and reflection filter effect to any image we place in the marquee.
• These filter effects were nested inside a programmatically created alpha gradient mask, carefully constructed to avoid exposing the edges of the transformed image.

Phase 2 ultimately became focused around measuring the effectiveness of a poster selector vs. a button selector as a wayfinding mechanism and entry point into the active marquee item. Since interaction expectations differ across TV, mobile, and web, we needed to validate which pattern translated best across input types. The intent was to find the approach that most consistently increased clicks and discoverability, while reducing the cognitive load of getting from browsing into watching.

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1. Fire TV Results - Variant 2 Wins
   • Marquee CTR:  +5%
   • Marquee Video Mins: +10.08%
   • Marquee Video Plays: +2.14%
2. iOS Results - Variant 2 Wins
   • Marquee CTR:  +91.95%
   • Marquee My List Button & Primary CTA: +87.88%
   • My List Only: +50.75%
   • Avg Homepage Video Plays (marquee): +44.1%
   • Avg Content Discovery (marquee): +30.4%
3. Web Results - Control Wins
   • Web users already understood how to browse the marquee from the peek alone, so the poster selector added visual noise without solving a real navigation problem.

• Extend a web-proven CTA pattern to TV and mobile, building on research showing "Watch Now" acted as a discovery barrier by creating ambiguity around whether clicks would immediately trigger playback
• Test contextual labels ("WATCH S1 E3", "RESUME S2 E4") that surface a user's exact watch state, reducing friction between the hero and playback
• Define success as net-positive ecosystem impact, measuring marquee CTR and engaged video plays with homepage and overall video minutes as guardrails
• Compare horizontal versus vertical CTA layouts across four Fire TV variants to identify the most usable interaction pattern before committing to a cross-platform design direction