Anna and Rodrigo Corral: Designing the Goodreads of Streaming
Anna and Rodrigo Corral photographed in their downtown New York City studio. All images by Rodrigo Corral Studio.
Wutch makes one of the day’s most important decisions easy: Of the bazillion things streaming, what is really worth watching? The ‘Goodreads of shows and films’ changes how we discover the best of what to watch now, replacing algorithms with human recs. In the Wutch app, you can aggregate all the shows you want to watch in a single place and uncover new ones, i.e. see what your design crush recently viewed.
Anna and Rodrigo Corral launched Wutch this week, and users are mostly of the design community. So while Fast and the Furious is an excellent movie for some, you’re likely to come across more soulful choices, such as Sound of Metal (Anna), Kiss the Ground (Anna), and Babylon Berlin (Rodrigo).
In 2015, Anna, the marketing force behind Rodrigo Corral Studio, encouraged Rodrigo—Creative Director for Farrar, Straus & Giroux and book jacket designer for the likes of Jay-Z and Chuck Palahniuk—to expand his conceptual work into branding and film. They’ve since reimagined the business memoir with Ray Dalio’s Principles and partnered with Amazon on the identity and marketing for Modern Love, a mural and subway train wrap for Hunters, and the iconography for Flack. Over the past year, they built Wutch, while navigating pandemic life and caring for a newborn.
Anna and Rodrigo spoke from their downtown studio about how this social experiment stands apart from other crowd-sourcing apps, how Wutch is designed to squash the infinite scroll, and why human recommendations trump algorithms.
Tell us about the thinking that led to Wutch.
Anna: On the streaming platforms, we would click on the film icons, look at what is essentially a book jacket and trust Netflix’s recommendation, while thinking, Is this something we would like? When really, in the back of our heads, we asked ourselves, What was that one film the photographer we met today told us we should watch?
We then talked about how we could take all of these recommendations from people in our community and bottle them up so they become a channel that we’re clicking on, like Goodreads for film. We knew there were some apps out there, but they weren’t nailing it for us. We saw apps that either feature everything you can recommend, from movies to restaurants. And we saw apps that emphasize reviews. These goals change how the apps function.
How is Wutch unique?
Anna: Unlike many apps that want to keep you inside for longer, we know that this app will be successful if you're in and out quickly. We’re trying to squash the infinite scroll. We saw data that said people spend more than 100 hours a year scrolling through social media platforms. The entire objective of this app is to give you the best feed of what to watch, aggregated in one place. You want to see what is recommended, which friends recommended it, and their one-sentence review. You’ve now got your show and you’re out of the app.
How did that goal influence your design decisions?
Anna: Every decision we make revolves around how we make it easy for our user to find the best of what to watch, then go watch it. Should we put messaging in the app? No. If people feel obligated to have a dialogue, then they're going to be in the app longer than it takes to find their next show. What about comments so you can have a dialogue? No, because then you’re conscious about writing back. Should we have category searching, so that you can click on one like “families” to find something quickly? Yes, that does give you the best feed to watch. Should we have “Point of View” cards that feature what certain people endorse? Yes, because that shows what people are watching.
In what ways do the human recommendations in Wutch differ from what the streaming platforms provide?
Anna: The streaming platforms have spent millions on recommendation engines, and they are going to prioritize their original content. I did a study about the power of a recommendation, and it showed that the recommendation from someone you know trumps anything that a computer can recommend to you.
The human recommendation always gives you something that answers the question in the back of your mind: Why am I watching this? It’s because someone you know or follow said something about it and, even if you’re not into the first episode, you keep going and all of a sudden are into it. If you have a trusted recommendation in your head, it changes the dynamic and you can become more receptive to enjoying what you're watching.
What was the biggest challenge in working together and making this?
Rodrigo: I think any project where you're starting from step one, it's getting it off the ground. There were so many nights where we would sit around talking about this. We'd be on holiday and Anna would be like, “We've got to make this happen.” Then we got back to our studio and there's work constantly to be done. Prioritizing our own projects is always the hardest thing.
Anna: This has taken on a life of its own to put pressure on us in a weird way, because we have this team of people working on it. We worked nights, weekends. Our baby turns one this month, and, at times, I would be working on it in the wee hours with the baby. I would almost give work to Rodrigo like it's a client project: “Here’s the Medium article I wrote. I need conceptual graphics for this. And it’s due on Thursday.”
How's Anna as a client?
Rodrigo: There are times when it's like a sitcom. I'm walking around the house thinking, What is going on here? But, the incredible thing that Anna brings to the table is the idea of putting a dot on the horizon and marching towards it. I am good at solving puzzles and pockets in a brief, and she can think of so many factors and get people to rally around it.
How did your design approach here compare to book jacket design?
Rodrigo: It’s the opposite of the book work where I'm translating a story and it's an instinctual feeling and aesthetic. Here, I’m trying to be out of the way and have it be part of a function. I would always find myself thinking about adding more, but then I would keep it simplified.
What’s the last great film you discovered on Wutch?
Rodrigo: Embrace of the Serpent. It’s fantastic.
