OVERVIEW

An app which let's you choose the movie shown in cinema. It is a redefined cinema experience which is aimed at bringing back the 247 million movie enthusiast in the US back to movie theatre.

MY ROLE

End-to-end Sole Product Designer

TOOLS

Figma, Figjam, Miro, Google meet, Trello

PROJECT TYPE

UX Master's thesis project

TIMELINE

8 Months

RESULT

An app that lets 247 million users enjoy the immersive experience
               that helps cinema industry overcome $4 Billion debt
               that helps fills up empty seats in cinema
               that is free for everyone to use

✦ THE PROBLEM

247 million

users in the US, prefer streaming over cinema

Streaming gives you the freedom to choose exactly what you want to watch. Cinema doesn't.

✦ THE solution

Vote to choose movie in cinema for you and your friends

90% users loved voting!

After voting, the show is only screened only when there's enough demand. The exclusivity of this show is what drives users to overcome barriers like cost, travel, and convenience.

Swipe to vote

Vote by swiping, select seats and pay to vote for the movie

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Enjoy the cult experience

Cinema is more enjoyable with friends. Invite all of them to the same show and split bills with everyone who confirms.

✦ UX ROADMAP / STRATEGY

How did I get there?

I used double diamond method as the basic structure and tuned it to cater for the projects need.

✦ RESEARCH

Why is streaming more convenient than cinema?

Survey data from 64 users from the US, India, UK, Germany and Australia

42% says cinema lacks "on demand viewing"

What is "On demand viewing" ?

To dig deeper, I conducted 13 user interviews with qualitative and quantitative questions

61% says "Content is the king"

While streaming, you can choose the cinema, but in a movie theatre, you have to choose from what is available.

Cinema is more than just a cinema

It is a day out, a change in scenery, something to talk about. But Factors like lack of good content, group planning ... were a problem

What is the biggest problem?

Lack of choice making the users choose streaming over cinema.

So if users choose movie for thm and their friends in cinema, will that fix the issue?

Technical RoAdblock

Gap in demand and supply

When the user requests a movie, it takes cinema 3 to 4 months to acquire the copyright for this user-requested content. This shows a clear gap between demand and supply.

Theatre sells cinema tickets

Theatre space is now available for rent

A user lease this space, they bring their own movie and host the show

Who will lease the space?

The host, one among the user now leases the space in cinema. This way the conflicting parties can align together.

✦ THE USER AND THE CUSTOMER

Who are we solving for

The user is bored of watching all the flicks in the theatre and is looking for something new. Even when the theatre try newer business models, all of it fails to engage movie-goers.

✦ Storyboard

A day in the life of a user

✦ USER FLOWS

How users navigate in the app

The user flow shows all the key decision making the movie-goer, host and the customer has to take.It also shows trigger, action, variable reward and investment by color.

✦ WIREFRAMES

The progress

A quick sketch of how the app evolved from first sketch to the final product.

✦ Design system

Visual Consistency

A set of reusable components which can create an on-brand, cross channel, scalable user experience

Introducing

Ballot Movies

Inviting friends

Invite friends, confirm their availability, selects seats or them, split the bill, all in one app.

Mystery movie

Select all parameters of the movie and the app will choose a mystery movie for you. It will only be reveled when you arrive for the screening.

✦ is the app easy to use?

Usability testing

The usability of new designs were tested in an unmoderated remote capacity with 6 testers. The results are as follows.

6
Participants

5
hours

6
Tasks

93%
Success

86%
Easiness

86%
Confidence

What were the issues?

A list of most frequent and most severe usability issues that the testers faced.

6/6
Unable to differentiate between voting purchasing tickets

6/6
Leasing space in cinema is confusing

4/6
Struggled finding invite friends icon

Major changes

User is now made more aware that they are voting for a movie, and not directly getting tickets. Similarly, minute changes were made in voting and hosting tutorials as well.

Vote and wait.

User is now made more aware that they are voting for a movie, and not directly getting tickets. Similarly, minute changes were made in voting and hosting tutorials as well.

More indications that user is voting, not purchasing tickets directly.

Hosting tutorial is now felt like mandatory. Changes in the home screen is now following industry UX best practices.

The idea of hosting is more clear with better terminologies and less distractions.

✦ pretotyping

Market Testing

Based on the book The Right It by Alberto Savoia, I mimicked the functionality of the app to test real-world engagement. My goal was to see if this approach could address both user and customer pain points. This is effective way to know if we are solving the right problem, before production, saving money, time and effort.

Success

At least
70% users like to choose the movie via voting

90% users loved voting for movies!

I hosted a movie night on campus and asked students to vote for their favorite choice via a Google Form survey. I also asked them about their satisfaction level with the movie selection process. They all loved it.

"It is democracy in cinema" - Rachel (medical student)

Success

At least
10% users like to host a movie

50% users can't wait to host

8 users participated in the screening. Out of all of them, 4 said they are willing to host another movie night on campus, and they can't wait!

Assumption Fail

At least
50% users will be satisfied by the mystery movie content

48% users stayed back from start to finish.

To test out the worst-case scenario, I hosted “The Dark Knight" on Thomas Jefferson University campus. Since everyone had already seen it, the dissatisfaction levels should be high. As expected, users left after some time as the show wasn't exclusive enough for them. But in an exit feedback form, someone said...

"Rather than hosting mystery stuff, ask people what they want, may be though voting?" This made my day.

Almost Success?

At least
30% theatre will upload their availability

30% did upload, but not through the right channels.

I reached out to 15 theaters in Philly, sending them a simple Excel file to fill out their private screening availability for the next two weeks. It was meant to take just 5 minutes to complete and return. Instead of getting back the templates, I received specific quotes for dates and times. So, it was almost a success!

✦ other side of the coin

UX/UI for the theatre

Interface of cinema theatre and how they will interact with the host.

✦ LEARNINGS

Self reflection

What I learned

Any new app with new features demand simplicity for users to build up the trust.
Success = User+business+technical limitations
Cinema is trying to change but its not working

Changes

Reframe functioning of mystery movie to early show of new releases.
In talks with copyright attorney to validate legal angles.

Next Project

Marketeq Digital

Application redesign

Ballot Movies

Swipe to vote

Enjoy the cult experience

Let's build something great together