The brand agency Method was contacted by Boxee to create a design for a hardware based media service that ties all types of media together in one place, along with social networks that allow the user to comment and participate with other users on the media that they have gathered.
Method was tasked with creating both a complete branding experience as well as the primary interface for Boxee. According to Method’s modus operandi, each element of the brand and interface must tell a consistent, inspiring story to the consumer. In the case of the Boxee project the audience consists of young technologically advanced computer users who look beyond traditional methods of finding and consuming media.
Using Methods core principles of telling a consistent story at each point of the consumer interaction, a design team broke down the Boxee concept into distinct elements, each element incorporating playful and aesthetic colors and design elements.
The brand’s main color scheme is very similar to the Xbox 360: lime green with yellow and orange accents. This color scheme must appeal to young technology driven demographics for it appears on numerous high tech products already in the marketplace. Without focus group data this color theory cannot be verified in this blog.
The interface design for Boxee calls to mind one of John Maeda’s laws of simplicity:
Organization makes a system of many appear fewer
Method followed this design principle when organizing the various types of digital media; although there may be hundreds of media channels grouped in Boxee, no one channel is far away.
Organized by traditional categories such as ‘title,’ to more fluid and intuitive categories such as ‘recently added’ and ‘most popular, Method made the Boxee interface more familiar to its young tech audience who is used to consuming media through Internet channels such as YouTube and Vimeo.
The beauty of this interface is that it retains the immediacy of television while conforming to more complex ways of grouping media that Boxee’s target audience is familiar with on the Internet.
According to Moggridge in the book ‘Designing Interactions’ the most challenging part of design is making something that operates within anthropological and ecological constraints.
Method dealt with these constraints in the creation of the Boxee interface by incorporating social networking alongside the delivery of digital media.
While watching a streaming video, users can comment or chat about what they are watching with other Boxee networks. When not watching, users can communicate with other Boxee users as well as see what they are watching or recommend.
Boxee is still in Alpha testing, so it was impossible to evaluate Method’s design firsthand. From the case study and photos available, it appears that Method has carried out a successful unified branding solution for Boxee.
