ABOUT
Skills
Downloads
Countries
Monthly active users
Idilio TV is an early-stage streaming startup that grew to 1.5M downloads without dedicated design support.
The founding team built and validated the product themselves, prioritizing speed over consistency. I joined as the first designer, with a mandate to identify where the product was underperforming and address it with research and analytics.
Monetization
Revenue without dark patterns
Visual language
Built for this audience, not borrowed
Design system
Scalable and consistent across screens
02
The audit
Without a design system or reliable instrumentation, each screen had been solved on its own terms.
Small inconsistencies did not stay small. The same unclear coin balance, unlabeled locked state, and abrupt paywall appeared across multiple screens, each one built separately and each one repeating the last one's problems. Fixing a single screen would not have changed the pattern. I started by mapping where these transitions occurred and instrumenting them.
The surfaces
Paywall, coin balance, locked episode, home.
The instrumentation
Event taxonomy and six funnels, built from scratch.
The constraint
Entry-level Android. Small screens, limited memory.
03
Users
User profiling started from the analytics we had and the questions they could not answer.
Device and market data gave me the baseline: entry-level Android, Spanish-speaking, concentrated in Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico. That told me the constraints but not the behavior. I built an interview protocol and placed survey entry points in the app to reach users at specific moments, then combined those responses with session data to define the segments the product needed to serve.
The baseline
Device and market data. Constraints, not behavior.
The methods
Interview protocol, in-app surveys, session data.
The output
Segments the product needed to serve.
04
Foundations
The product had no design system. Color, spacing and type were decided screen by screen.
I established the token set, component library and visual identity, then defined an accessibility baseline for contrast and tap targets appropriate to small, low-spec screens.
What existed
Colour, spacing, type decided screen by screen.
What I built
Tokens, components, identity, accessibility baseline.
What it enforces
Contrast, tap targets, coin semantics — in code.
05
Monetization
Monetization lacked a clear structure. Users who intended to pay hit friction between the paywall and checkout.
The coin system was implemented as separate features with no shared logic. I restructured the paywall as a cascade and instrumented dismissal so intent could be distinguished from abandonment. Earning, buying, claiming and spending were mapped as one connected loop.
The paywall
Cascade, with dismissal instrumented to separate intent.
The coin economy
Earn, buy, claim, spend as one connected loop.
The guardrail
Revenue per exposed user, watched against every gain.
Impact
The cascade lifted engagement and reduced coin purchases. I documented the tradeoff as a decision for the founders, and flagged where the pattern risked becoming a dark pattern.
06
Discovery
The home page failed at recognizing user state. Every visitor saw the same content in the same order.
Someone three episodes into a series and someone who had just finished one need different things from the same screen. I redesigned the layout to order content by where the user was in their viewing, and defined a second discovery surface for users with no clear next step.
Home
Content ordered by where the user is in their viewing.
Find
A second surface for users with no clear next step.
Targeting
Different screens for different users, one system.
07
In Production
I worked directly in the codebase when the deliverable required it.
Paywall screens, the coin icon system and the transaction log were implemented in React Native, using Claude Code and VS Code alongside Figma, and reviewed by the engineering team before merging.
What shipped
Paywall screens, coin icon system, transaction log.
The tooling
Claude Code and VS Code alongside Figma.
The handoff
Feature branches, reviewed by engineering before merging.
08
Results
By the end of the engagement the team had a design system they could extend, instrumentation that did not previously exist, and shipped features running in production.
The A/B results were documented as a tradeoff, with the decision left to the founders.
Founder quote goes here.
Gabriela Tafurt
CEO, Idilio TV
Shipped
Paywall screens, coin system, transaction log, live.
Documented
The A/B tradeoff, as a decision the founders own.
Still open
Streak forgiveness. Whether the cascade's gain holds.
Related work
03
SU
SwagUp: operations as a product
Design systems
SU
SwagUp: operations as a product
Design systems
