Leila's Movie Trailas
Sample Project: Creating a Movie Trailer App for my Google UX Design Certificate
THE PROBLEM
Users have difficulty knowing when and where a movie will be released because of so many streaming services. They struggle keeping up to date with the latest movies and need a way to find movie information quickly and easily.
MAKE OF THE TEAM
Me
KEY GOAL
Design a movie trailer app that helps users understand when and where they can see a movie
MY ROLE
UX/UI Designer
UX Reseracher
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
THE SOLUTION
I designed a movie trailer app that clearly states when and where a movie will be released so that users can watch movies without any difficulty, and keep them up to date with the latest movies. Users found the app's navigation to be easy to use, enjoyed the visual design, and users found the filter option to be very helpful as well. The app made sense to them.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
I created this app for users who love movies. After interviewing my friends and family who like and don't like movies, I created 2 user personas, a user journey map and storyboards.
2 major pain points that I discovered in my interviews were:
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Users hate ads
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Users watch a movie trailer and they aren't informed as to where a movie will be released, which makes them confused and annoyed
BREAKING DOWN THE PROCESS
After my research, I conducted a competitive audit, wireframes, lo-fi prototype, usability test and a hi-fi prototype.
My competitive audit was really insightful and helped me plan out my design. I analyzed the following apps:
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iTunes Movie Trailer App
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IMDB
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AMC Theaters
I liked the black background and white font that the iTunes Movie Trailer app and AMC app used because it gets me in the mood to go see a movie (the black theater screen and the black background go well together). IMDB feels more like a Wikipedia page for movies because of the white background and feels more like a source for information rather than a tool to be used to go watch a movie. IMDB does a great job in saving movie trailers to your watchlist, while the other 2 apps don’t do this very well. They all need to include closed captioning in their videos.
I decided that the videos in the app would definitely have closed captioning to help anyone with a disability, an "add to your list" feature, and that the background needed to be black because I think that color makes the user feel like watching a movie.
After the wireframe and lo-fi prototype were designed, I organized a research plan and conducted a usability test with 5 individuals. My main takeaways from the usability test were:
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Make the content on the homepage larger (images and text) so that part of the content is cut off so users understand that they can scroll down to see additional content
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Switch “Watch Now” with “Recommended For You” on the home page so users have access to the new content right away
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Add a filter icon to the “Released” and “Upcoming” pages so that users can choose, which movie genre category they want to see
My main theme for my visual design were stars and movie theater popcorn - the colors that I chose reflected these choices. In addition, I made sure that the colors I picked passed a Contrast and Color Accessibility test. I chose Source Sans Pro because I wanted the content to be readable. I chose Bree Serif for the logo text because I wanted a more playful typeface. I created the Star Logo in Figma and wanted the image to be fun, cute and soft.
After I finished up my mockups, I created the hi-fi prototype. Instead of interviewing individuals, I decided to conduct an unmoderated survey so I could see the differences between an interview and a survey. I updated my research plan and posted my survey on Linkedin. 16 people completed the survey and it took them about 5 minutes to complete. The survey results were fascinating and my main takeaways were:
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The navigation is user-friendly, simple and clear
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The app’s buttons functioned properly and made sense to users
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The users liked the visual design
THESE WERE SOME MAJOR LEARNINGS OR POINTS I WANTED TO CALL OUT
Interviews vs. Surveys
Overall, I believe interviews are more insightful than surveys because you can dive deeper into the participant's responses, which helps to understand user pain points. Surveys are faster and require less time, but I think interviews provide more insights to improve an app. I'm glad I had the chance to do both.
Don't Take Feedback to Heart
There were a couple of participants (both in the interview and survey) who found my designs not to their liking. Remaining neutral to feedback (both positive and negative) is important because the product is about pleasing the user, not me the designer.