iWorld
ZEUX Innovation partners with Discovery India to deliver country’s first aggregated real-life entertainment app
MUMBAI: ZEUX Innovation, outcome-driven UX design firm, has partnered with Discovery India to design the Discovery+ app. The app was launched on 18 March 2020 and continues to garner rave reviews across major app stores for its content and user experience.
Discovery India business head Issac John said: “As a product, our team was very conscious of solving barriers for user adoption in a cluttered OTT market like India. The various researches and design workshops that ZEUX led for us, placed user motivations at the heart for solving these barriers. The iterative work, completed over several months, has paid rich dividends for us as expressed by the umpteen user reviews that have highlighted the rich yet simple to navigate UI & UX of Discovery Plus”.
ZEUX designed the Discovery+ app with an end objective to deliver a best-in-class and differentiated OTT experience.
The ZEUX Edge: 5 key UX design pillars for Discovery+
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One-stop-shop |
As a first step, ZEUX conducted foundational research with target users across India to ascertain Discovery’s app consolidated strategy. Other insights gathered regarding content preferences, subscription models, pricing, etc. also helped establish a clear app strategy and laid down a solid foundation for the design effort. |
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Discoverability |
ZEUX completely re-imagined the content categorisation approach for Discovery+ and created several innovative content buckets and micro-genres (such as: time of day, emotion, content length, life stage, brag value, etc.). This not only ensured that the overall information architecture of the app matches the target users’ mental models but also enhanced content findability. |
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Stickiness |
The unique ”Shorts” feature was an innovation crafted specifically to enhance engagement for the new-age generation. Never seen before on any OTT platform, Shorts brought snackable non-fiction content & infinite scrolling to offer a unique engagement strategy for Discovery+ |
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Shareability |
ZEUX built a hyper-simple sharing experience by seamlessly integrating user’s most preferred sharing channel (WhatsApp) into the app interface. This innovation has proven to be a key factor in enhancing content share-ability resulting in higher organic user acquisitions for Discovery+ |
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Intelligence |
Circular content toggles at the top of key pages were created by ZEUX to ensure that the home & landing pages for core content categories showcase Discovery’s vast content breadth and depth. Click-data from the toggles also fortified the app’s intelligence gathering mechanism and fuelled its content personalisation & recommendation engines. |
Saurabh Gupta, co-founder, ZEUX Innovation, said: “We are proud to be the UX design partner for Discovery+. We leveraged the science of human performance & persuasion design to craft an OTT experience that is a perfect balance between delivering specific business outcomes, addressing diverse user needs and effectively managing technology considerations”.
Adding to the perspective, Hemal Gathani, co-founder, ZEUX Innovation, said: “Client support was the key factor in transforming our thoughts into reality. The fact that the Discovery team supported our thought process and empowered us to think laterally, led to a seamless delivery from our end”.
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iWorld
Spotify rolls out ‘Verified by Spotify’ badge for artists
New badge and profile details aim to boost transparency in AI-driven music era.
MUMBAI: In a world where even playlists can have imposters, Spotify is adding a badge of trust. The streaming platform has begun rolling out a new ‘Verified by Spotify’ badge, alongside expanded artist profile details, as it looks to bring greater clarity to listeners navigating an increasingly complex mix of human and AI-generated music. The badge, currently in beta, will appear on artist profiles that meet Spotify’s internal criteria for authenticity. These include consistent listener engagement, adherence to platform policies and signs of a real-world presence such as live performances, merchandise or active social media profiles. Notably, profiles representing primarily AI-generated artists will not be eligible for verification at launch.
Spotify says the verification process will combine automated systems with human review, prioritising artists with sustained audience interest over those driven by short-term spikes. The rollout will be gradual, with the badge appearing across profiles and search results over the coming weeks. The company noted that more than 99 per cent of artists users actively search for are already included in the initial phase.
Alongside the badge, Spotify is also introducing a new artist details section within profiles. Available even for non-verified artists, the feature will highlight career milestones, release activity and touring history, offering listeners a more comprehensive view of an artist’s journey and output.
The move builds on Spotify’s broader push towards transparency, complementing existing features such as SongDNA, expanded song credits and AI attribution tools. Together, these updates aim to give users more context about what they are listening to and who is behind it.
As generative AI continues to blur the lines between creator and creation, Spotify’s latest update signals a clear intent: in the streaming era, authenticity is becoming just as important as accessibility.
