For the first time in more than a decade, Roku is overhauling its homescreen in a bid to drive more engagement and surface relevant content and apps for its users, with more dynamic and personalized functionality.
“The new homescreen will lean into personalization, while making sure that it retains the simplicity that it has been known for,” said Roku vp of viewer product Preston Smalley, speaking in a press briefing in New York Wednesday morning. “We sat down with our founder, Anthony Wood, our CEO, and really talked about what does this mean for the company? What does it mean for him?
“We haven’t changed it for a decade, so we set those out, and we were really clear about that,” he continued. “And then we assembled the broad team, design, analytics, engineering, brand ads, the AI people, and so we brought them all together and said, ‘look, this is what we’re trying to achieve, and we let the data be our guide, we did the research, we tried different things, we brainstormed, we went through discovery, and where we ended up was not necessarily where we started, but it was always guided by those same principles and values that we set out at the very beginning.”
The big changes: Your most used apps will now be featured more prominently, reducing the need to hunt for specific streaming services. There will also be a “top picks for you” section that recommends apps and programming that Roku thinks you will enjoy, and a large “marquee” ad spot that could tout apps or shows.
