Movie App (2022)
This project is a Movie App designed for movie enthusiasts to discover movies and book tickets. This project was completed as part of the Google UX Design Professional Certificate. My goals for working on this project were to sharpen my skills and to demonstrate my expertise throughout the whole design process. This project was supported by user research, user interviews, and usability testing.
My Roles: UX Design, UI Design, User Research, Visual Design
Problems & Goals
Movie enthusiasts and busy workers want an easy way to discover new movies to find and to watch in theaters. The goal of this application is to let users rate movie recommendations which will affect users who browse movies to watch by letting users discover movies that they might be interested in.
Understanding the User
To understand the user, I conducted interviews, and created personas, user stories, and user journey maps. A primary user group identified through research was busy working adults who are either movie enthusiasts or enjoy watching movies at their leisure.
Research revealed that users wanted to discover movies to watch based on genre, plot, and other preferences. Other user problems included finding official movie trailers and movie information, and having no easy way to book tickets after watching a trailer.
Pain Points
The following pain points were discovered during user research:
Time: Working adults need an efficient way to decide on what movie to watch in theaters
Information: It is difficult to find complete movie information and trailers from existing apps from local theaters
Preferences: Existing cinema apps do not give smart movie recommendations to customers
Personas
After conducting user interviews, the following personas were created for the project.
User Journey Map
To further empathize with users, a user journey map was created. This was also a great way to identify improvement opportunities.
Ideation & Design
After synthesizing all of the user research, the following features were important to have to address user pain points: setting movie preferences, movie recommendations, movie information page, and access to digital tickets.
User Flow & Paper Wireframes
I always find it most effective to sketch ideas by hand since this is a fast way to articulate ideas visually. The first step for ideating for the features was to create a user flow and draw wireframes.
Digital Wireframes
As the initial design phase continued, digital wireframes were created based on feedback and findings from user research.
Low-fidelity Prototype
Using the set of digital wireframes, a low-fidelity prototype was created. The primary user flow connected was browsing recommendations to booking movie tickets, so the prototype could be used in a usability study.
Usability Testing
Two rounds of usability studies were conducted. Findings from the first study helped guide the designs from wireframes to mockups. The second study used a high-fidelity prototype and revealed what aspects of the mockups needed refining.
The usability studies were both moderated (3 participants) and unmoderated (3 participants). Each participant was asked to do different tasks with the prototype and answer a series of questions to learn more about their thought process.
Round 1 Findings
Users wanted to see what other people are saying about the movie
Users found it difficult to find their tickets
Users wanted more specific examples to set their movie preferences
Round 2 Findings
Movie preferences looked complicated
Users were not sure what the location icon was
Refining the Design
Early designs allowed for a broad way to select preferences, but after the usability studies, more specific examples were displayed. Users also found it difficult to find their movie tickets so after usability studies, the tickets button was changed to a floating button so it is always visible on the feed, and also added to the Profile menu for easy access.
Key Mockups
High-Fidelity Mockup
The final high-fidelity prototype presented cleaner user flows for browsing movies and booking tickets. It also met user needs for having easy access to their digital tickets.
View the High-Fidelity Prototype on Figma
Accessibility Considerations
The following accessibility considerations were made during the project:
Displayed relevant information such as closed captions for those with hearing impairments.
Other information such as wheelchair access can be displayed depending on theater specifications during seat selection
Carefully utilized icons to help make navigation easier
Impact
The app makes users feel like their needs are being met by helping them reach their goal.
One quote from usability studies:
"I do feel like I can navigate around the app super quickly. I'd probably use this a lot!"
What I Learned
While designing for this project, I learned that user research can really surprise you, no matter what your assumptions are. Engaging more with users and taking time to research positively influenced each stage of the design process.
Next Steps
Design is a continuous process. When designing a product, teams should be flexible and adaptive to changes in the market and with their users. I am recommending the following next steps for the Movie App project:
Explore a user friendly way for users to be able to share tickets with people they will be watching with. During user research, I discovered that some users are social when watching movies. I attempted this with a "Share Tickets" button but this only confused testing participants. I believe that a design solution for this can be explored in a future version.
Conduct a more in-depth usability study and design ideation for the seat selection. The seat selection screen has a lot of information but they are all vital to be placed together to allow users more flexibility in exploring their options for when and where to watch a movie. With more research and ideation, I believe improvements can be made on this screen.
Conduct further studies for accessible. I believe in inclusive design and aim to design accessible products. This project would benefit from conducting more usability studies with a more diverse group of participants. From there, I am confident that improvements on accessibility will be discovered.