BSkyB — Media & Entertainment
One Sky+ experience, every screen.
Sky+ needed a single companion app that felt native on iPad, iPhone and a fast-fragmenting field of Android tablets and phones. We designed the wireframes, prototypes and visuals — the result became one of the most downloaded apps on the App Store and won a Best Design award.
/ 01 — The Challenge
One product, a fast-fragmenting field of screens.
Sky+ needed a consistent way to browse, record and manage TV that felt native everywhere it ran — starting with iPad and iPhone, then extending to a wide range of Android tablets and phones from manufacturers like Motorola, each with its own screen size, input method and OS conventions.
The team couldn't afford to fork the product per device. Every new form factor had to inherit the same design system, not a rebuilt one.
Figure 1 — the user flow research: find, watch and record, mapped end to end before any screen was drawn
/ 02 — The Approach
A shared visual language, taught through gesture.
Research, strategy, wireframes and visual design were built around one flexible system — Sky's signature blue gradient UI and a consistent icon set for TV Guide, Planner, Featured, Search, My Sky, Settings, Help and Remote — designed to scale from phone to tablet without losing its shape.
- Designed the Sky+HD box pairing and "App Set Up Instructions" onboarding flow, so a new customer could connect their box and their tablet to the same network without confusion.
- Built a gesture-based remote-control layer for tablet — tap, swipe and multi-finger gestures mapped to play/pause, rewind, fast-forward and channel change — and taught it directly in-product.
- Designed the recommendation and reminder flows ("You may also like," episode reminders) that kept the experience feeling personal on every screen size.
Figure 2 — concept wireframes covering browse & discover, settings & help, and the phone/tablet experience
/ 03 — The Solution
A full companion app, shipped everywhere.
The finished app gave customers live TV Guide, Planner, Featured content, Search, My Sky account management and Remote control, alongside Movies, Sports and Entertainment browsing — all built on the same component system whether a customer opened it on an iPhone, an iPad, or an Android device.
Figure 3 — the Sky Mobile App showcase, from phone experience through to tablet and large-screen
/ 04 — The Results
The numbers that moved.
- Won a Best Design award for the finished app experience.
- Became one of the most downloaded apps on the App Store in its category.
- Proved out one design system across iPad, iPhone and multiple Android device families, without fragmenting the product per platform.
Want results like these?
Book a free 30-minute discovery call. No pressure. Just ideas.
Book a Call