Ptch, was the first iOS app we created at DreamWorks Animation, and it enabled users to reinvent a typical slideshow, by creating & remixing multimedia shorts using videos, photos, and music stored on their iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, or on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, & Tumblr.
In addition to coming fully loaded with a number of pre-canned styles, fonts, graphics, and Instagram-like filters, DreamWorks leveraged its media connections to allow users to apply snippets of the Billboard Hot 100 to their videos, royalty free. In addition, with some restrictions, you could also supplement your videos and publish them with your own tunes, if one of the included songs didn't fit your remix perfectly. Videos could then be traded, remixed again within the community, and rather than being static presentations, video became "living media."
I was contracted by Jeffrey Katzenberg, CTO Ed Leonard, and Project Lead Hans Ku, to act as a "fresh-eye" on the product, conduct a general usability assessment and offer suggestions for UI improvement.
In addition, I wrote the customer-facing Ptch iPhone Application Help Documentation, and copy-edited existing text within the application for errors. I also formulated response scenarios to any Digital Millennium Copyright Act abuses which might occur, that protected the rights of both the accused and the complainants, and built workflow graphs to help Programmers divide external Legal Department procedures which might result from a complaint, from in-app auto-generated customer notifications.
Finally, I created the first marketing language used to describe some of the new products that accompanied the Ptch application so that the CTO could better present the conceptual framework to investors. Ptch was ultimately purchased by Yahoo! in 2014, and our features were integrated into their toolset.
