The Best for Fun App of 2024
+SBT is the free streaming platform of SBT, one of Brazil’s largest TV networks, on TV, web and mobile.
- Role
- Senior Product Designer at Accedo
- Client
- SBT
- Period
- Jan 2024 – Apr 2025 · launched Aug 2024
- Platforms
- TV, web, iOS, Android
- Team
- Accedo: design manager, 2 product designers, 4 engineers, tech lead, project manager, QA · SBT: 2 PMs, 1 designer
- Results
- Google Play’s Best for Fun App of 2024
About the client
SBT is one of Brazil’s largest TV networks, known for soap operas, entertainment shows and sports. Until 2023, its digital content lived on YouTube and in a beta app, SBT Vídeos.
YouTube brought over 80 million views a month. But SBT shared that ad revenue with Google and had no say over the experience.
+SBT was the way back: its own free streaming platform, on every screen the audience already had.
Best for Fun App Award
of 2024 on Google Play
Source: Google, Nov 2024
1M
downloads in under 10 days
Source: SBT News, Nov 2024
19M+
downloads in the first year
Source: SBT, store and TV platform consoles, Aug 2024 – Jul 2025
The challenge
SBT Vídeos only ran on mobile and web, people struggled to find content, and the interface no longer matched the new +SBT brand. Accedo’s white-label product was the base, and the deadline was tight.
In a workshop with SBT’s team, we set two goals: engage the audience on a new branded platform, and reach a rating of 4.6 or higher in the app stores.
I owned the product definition, the interface and design QA on all four platforms.
Easy navigation through the catalog
Discovery showed one clear problem: people couldn’t find what they came for. SBT’s audience data, an analysis of YouTube comments and a review of national and international streaming services all pointed the same way.
So the catalog opens with a filter by content type, such as soap operas, series, movies and TV shows. It works the same everywhere: a row of chips at the top of the catalog on TV and mobile, a dropdown on web.
A side menu that steps aside
I proposed a light navigation bar at the top, so the eye would go straight to the content. SBT asked for a side menu, the pattern other streaming services used at the time. My job became making that choice work without losing what the top bar protected.
The design had to answer three needs: keep the content first, speak to a TV audience less used to digital products, as SBT’s own data showed, and follow the pattern the business trusted.
The live channels page was the hardest case. It already had a channel list on the left and a mini EPG at the bottom, with what’s on now and what’s next. An open side menu would stack a second column next to the channels. So on that page the menu stays closed, as a single “Menu” label above the channel list. A word is easier to read from the couch than a column of icons, and the live channel keeps the screen.
Where it landed
- Google Play’s Best for Fun App of 2024, three months after launch.
- 1 million downloads in under 10 days, and #1 in Entertainment on Google Play (SBT News, Nov 2024). Among the most downloaded entertainment apps on iOS and Android in Brazil in August 2024.
- 4.7 average rating across the stores in April 2025, when I left the project, above the 4.6 goal.
- 19 million+ downloads and 440 million+ plays in the first year (SBT, Aug 2024 – Jul 2025).
- Positive feedback on social media praised the organization and the usability (SBT News, Nov 2024).
Highlights
- Defined the product and the interface for TV, web, iOS and Android, on top of a white-label base.
- Ran design QA with engineering and QA before each release.
- Mentored the junior designer who joined in mid-2024 and reviewed every screen they delivered.
- Presented progress in weekly meetings with SBT’s PMs and designer and with our developers.
What I’d do differently
I argued for the top navigation with design principles, and the business answered with a market reference. Next time, I’d bring a quick test with the TV audience to that conversation before the decision is made.