Sky+ Redesign
TLDR
The Challenge:
With on demand viewing rapidly growing, the existing TV EPG buried content discoverability behind a live TV-first structure, making it hard for 10 million customers to find on demand contebt including catch-up, box sets and movies.
My Role:
As part of a team of 6 designers, I led focused UI and UX across both the EPG redesign and enhanced EPG, being responsible for design and delivery of the new experiences including Homepage, visual identity refresh, and integrated search and suggestions functionality.
The Impact:
By 2014, the first full year after the redesign, Sky customers made 450 million on-demand requests through Sky+ HD boxes, double the number from 2012.
The EPG was interacted with approx. 1.2 billion times a month, making it one of the most-used interfaces in the UK.
The problem
Sky's Electronic Programme Guide had been the primary interface between 10 million TV customers and their content since the launch of digital TV in 1998.
But the way customers watched TV was changing fast with on-demand, catch-up and box sets were growing rapidly, yet the EPG still placed live TV at the centre of everything, burying on-demand content several layers deep.
The brief was to redesign the Homepage to reflect how customers actually watched TV, providing on-demand content a spotlight alongside live TV for the first time.
My role
As part of a team of 6 designers, I worked across UI and UX for the redesigned enhanced EPG update. My responsibilities spanned across a spectrum of impactful design language updates to enhance the the visual identity across the wider Sky+ HD EPG.
Design enhancements
A new Homepage to spotlight on demand content across the platform
For the first time ever, On Demand, Catch Up TV, Sky Store and the Sky+ Planner sat alongside live channel listings as equal options on the Homepage. Previously, customers had to navigate several layers deep from the live TV guide just to reach on-demand content. The new Homepage surfaced everything upfront. Live or On Demand, with instant search across the full catalogue.
Central to the new Homepage was an image driven tile interface.
This dynamic, visually-led layout where content artwork updated automatically via internet connection, aligned to Sky's content scheduling. As new movies, box sets and series were added to the catalogue, the Homepage tiles refreshed to reflect them, keeping the interface feeling current and editorially alive for customers returning day after day.
Rather than a static menu, the Homepage became a living window into what was worth watching right now.
Premium visual identity refresh
Alongside the structural redesign came a comprehensive visual refresh of the EPG.
Replacing the legacy aesthetic with a flat, sharp visual language that modernised the look and feel across the entire guide. The redesign moved away from blocky UI frames, rounded corners and flat colours in favour of a cleaner, brand-aligned dark gradient palette, allowing premium content artwork and imagery to take centre stage rather than competing with the interface around it.
The gold focus highlight — the visual cue communicating a viewer's current position within the guide — was refined as part of the refresh. A subtle but impactful uplift in colour gave it greater presence and clarity, while maintaining Sky's AAA accessibility standards for television interfaces.
Integrated search and suggestions
The redesigned EPG introduced integrated search across both live and on-demand content, and a new recommendations system based on Sky+ Planner recordings and downloads. This empowered customers with a smarter, more personalised way to discover what to watch next.
Launch and Impact
Scale of the platform
The new Sky+ HD EPG redesign interaction data showcased with an average of 1.2 billion times a month by Sky's customer base.
This made it one of the most-used interfaces in UK television.
The new redesign Homepage launched with increased on-demand viewing by 209%.
By 2014, the first full year after the redesign, Sky customers made 450 million on-demand requests through Sky+ HD boxes, double the number from 2012. Combined with Sky Go, Sky customers requested 1.2 billion shows in 2013 — averaging 38 requests per second.
Platform growth
With the new visual and feature updates, Sky+ HD subscriptions grew from 4.2 million homes in March 2012 to 4.8 million by 2013 and 5.2 million by June 2014, with data showcasing an average of 11,000 new customers connecting their Sky+HD box each day.
© 2026 Simon Wessely