Moovies
Saving Time and Stress by Helping you Choose a Movie to Watch
The Challenge
Watching a movie is a big commitment. It can take up to 2+ hours of your time, so it’s imperative that you pick something that you will enjoy.
Whether it’s “Netflix and chilling” or just a movie night with friends, we’ve all been faced with the daunting task of deciding on what to watch. Often times, it’s the struggle between watching something we haven’t seen before and re-watching a movie that we’ve enjoyed in the past. With the various streaming services that are now available at our fingertips, there are more movies out there than ever; which makes the process of picking a movie much harder.
Overview
Moovies is a mobile app that helps people decide on a movie to watch.
The inspiration for this project came from a problem that I was facing constantly in my life. Making a decision on what movie to watch has always been a time-consuming task, and I wanted to find a solution for it through design. I collaborated with another designer friend of mine to create a product that would help alleviate this pain point. In a 7-day sprint, we researched how people go about choosing a movie and collected insights on our potential users. We used these insights to wireframe, prototype, and test a mobile app design.
Our Goal
Improve the experience of watching movies, by simplifying the way we decide on what to watch.
Research
The first step in our research was to examine the existing literature on how people decide on what movie to watch. Our most prominent finding was that movie trailers are the biggest determinant of choosing movies. In a 2014 study conducted by Google Infographics & Millward Brown Digital, they found that the official movie trailers influence people’s decision 3x more than any other source when deciding on a movie to watch. Following the trailers, the study showed that casting and friend recommendations were also determining factors for movie viewers.
Competitive Analysis
We analyzed various mobile apps on the market, such as JustWatch and PopFlake, to explore the current solutions to the problem of choosing a movie to watch. After evaluating each app, we found two main takeaways:
Lack of Information on Movies
When browsing for movies, the apps relied only on the movie posters for users to make a decision on the ones to click into. Even once a film was selected, important details such as the summary, ratings/reviews, and the cast members were missing.
Limited & Inefficient Search Options
Most of the apps offered only one way of searching up movies, which were either by genre or keywords. In contrast, some apps provided too many options and categories, to the point where the layout and organization suffered.
User Interviews
In order to frame the problem space and define the needs of our users, we conducted several rounds of user interviews with young adults between ages 18 and 30. The objective of the interviews was to figure out how people go about choosing a movie to watch, and what they do when they cannot decide. We found out that:
Ratings & Reviews
Objective movie ratings/reviews are very important when picking a movie. The majority of our interviewees found that the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes to be the most helpful.
“I like to use Rotten Tomato to find something highly rated.”
Friend Recommendations
Friends’ opinions matter to our users. Most of the interviewees said that if they know that their friends have watched a certain movie, they are more likely to want to watch it as well.
"[I] text my friends what they've watched. Mostly for genre and recommendations."
Resort to Re-Watching Movies
100% of our interviewees stated that they end up watching a movie that they’ve seen already when they cannot make a decision on a movie.
"[I] watch something that's safe that you know it's going to be good."
Establishing our target users
With the data collected from our user interviews, we created two personas based on the different scenarios that our users may find themselves in when deciding on a movie to watch. Andrew O’Mcdonald (top) represented the user that wants to pick a movie to watch alone, while Vivian Chu (bottom) represented the user that is choosing a movie with a group of friends. Creating the personas allowed us to get a sense of who our users were and helped capture their goals and frustrations, which ultimately acted as the guide for next phase of our design process.
Storyboarding
During the brainstorming phase, we created storyboards using the two different scenarios described in our personas. By illustrating the narrative, we were able to visualize our product in terms of how people would use it.
Our Findings
By synthesizing the findings from our research, we were able to break down the process of how people decide on a what movie to watch. From there we identified the factors that mattered most to our users and prioritized their needs as our design rationale. Our primary findings were that users wanted multiple ways of search movies, objective ratings, and easy access to trailers
Paper prototyping
We created a paper prototype so that we can evaluate the flow and interactions of our designs before moving on to high-fidelity wireframes on Sketch. By prototyping early on in our process, we were able to quickly assess whether our designs clearly communicated our ideas.
High fidelity wireframes
We then transferred the paper prototype into Sketch App to better visualize our designs.
Usability Testing & Iterations
It was important to test our design early on so that we can identify any problems in usability and fluidity. We used InVision to prototype our grayscale wireframes and conduct five user tests.
Final Design
Based on the feedback we got from the usability testing, we made major changes to the visual design of the movie searching process. We incorporated a cartoon space theme to add more character to the mobile app.
A two-step process to finding movies
The filter options offer multiple ways for users to search for movies. Once an option is selected, users are able to scroll through various categories to find a curated list of movies that interests them.
Making browsing fun and easy
It was important to provide all the information our users needed to make a decision on a movie. We focused on the hierarchy of information and accessibility of streaming services, so that users can compare and contrast movies efficiently.
Takeaways
I found this project to be very helpful in my development as a designer. Given the 7-day constraint, my teammate and I were able to stay on schedule and complete each step of the process on time. Deciding on a movie to watch has always been a problem in my life, therefore finding a solution for this was not only enjoyable but rewarding as well.
The challenging part was identifying which information was most important for our target audience. Even after the user interviews, it was difficult to pin point exactly what our users cared most about, when it came to choosing a movie. I learned that by combining the findings from each research method, I was able to better understand the problem and narrow down my focus on improving the experiences for our personas, Andrew and Vivian.