Quick Access Menu,Sky Glass

01 · Outcome

Shipped with Sky Glass,and scaled further

Quick Access Menu launched with Sky Glass in October 2021, driving 1,897,368 monthly converted journeys with a 65% conversion rate. Users completed their intended actions in an average of 32.41 seconds,validating the core design principle of effortless access.

1,897,368

Monthly converted journeys through Quick Access Menu

65%

Conversion rate when QAM is invoked,users complete their intended action

32.41 sec

Average time in QAM before converting,speed and clarity by design

02 · Challenge

A lift-and-shift that became a strategic redesign

Originally briefed as a lift-and-shift of Sky Q's settings experience onto Sky Glass, what began as a migration quickly became a strategic redesign. The existing approach couldn't serve Glass's unique capabilities,or its customers' needs.

The opportunity: provide a globally accessible menu of tools and settings for customers to get the best out of their Sky Glass experience,without disrupting the content they came to watch.

What we inherited

Sky Q's settings were buried in deep hierarchies, designed for a remote-heavy interaction model. Sky Glass needed something faster, more contextual, and built for a new audience.

The opportunity space

Competitor analysis showed Samsung, Sony, and LG offered no comparable quick-access layer. Sky Glass had a genuine chance to set a new standard for TV navigation.

03 · Discovery

Research & problem definition

Research with Sky Glass users revealed a paradox: most people rarely change settings,but when they need to, they can't find them. This shaped the core design challenge: discoverability over habit.

79% had changed a setting

Most users had changed at least one setting,validating that QAM was a meaningful touchpoint, not a rarely-used utility.

44% never change settings yearly

Nearly half of users made no setting changes in any given year,meaning the menu had to be instantly learnable, not relied on from memory.

66% never change settings monthly

Infrequent use meant muscle memory couldn't be the answer. Clarity and hierarchy mattered more than speed for power users.

04 · Design

A modular card system designed for scale

I worked through three core design challenges: Settings Architecture, Discoverability, and Market Benchmarking. The solution was a modular, card-based component system built around five core navigational paradigms,flexible enough to serve Sky Glass today and scale to future devices.

Four principles guided every decision:

Effortless access

One button press from any state. No hunting, no hierarchy navigation,the most needed actions surfaced instantly.

Non-disruptive interaction

QAM overlays content without replacing it. Users stay in context,whether browsing, watching live TV, or mid-playback.

Consistency across devices

Designed to work across Sky Glass and the XiOne puck,a unified experience regardless of hardware variant.

Future-proofing

The card-based architecture was built to accommodate new features,proven when it extended to Watch Together PiP and Sky Protect Video Doorbell integration.

Outcome · Extended Impact

A foundation that scaled beyond QAM

The modular card architecture proved its future-proofing credentials: QAM's flexible design directly enabled two major downstream integrations, without redesigning the core layer.

Sky Live Watch Together

The PiP and overlay patterns established in QAM became the foundation for Watch Together's co-viewing interface,accelerating design delivery on a 0→1 product.

Sky Protect Video Doorbell

QAM's card-based architecture extended to integrate Sky Protect Video Doorbell notifications into the Sky Glass experience,without redesigning the core layer.

Quick Access Menu - Sky Glass