top of page
Story Talkies
StoryTalkies app is an online platform to book movie tickets featuring at a specific movie theater. I chose this as a sample problem statement to learn Adobe & take a grasp of complete design process.
The goal of creating the app was to enable all the movie lovers to select and book tickets in advance without waiting in lines. The app provides the freedom to select the movie, preferred date and time, and also the specific seat they would like to watch the movie. The other feature eliminates the need of physical ticket and provides online tickets.
"StoryTalkies is an app enabling movie lovers to book the tickets without waiting in queues"
Role: UX designer
Conducting interviews, making paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, and iterating on designs.
Project Duration: May-June 2022
User Research
For understanding the needs of the user, surveys and interviews of the college students and working adults (focused on tech-savy generation) were conducted. The questions varied from frequency at which they watch movies, how much earlier they plan watching a movie, to the problems in booking a movie.
Research Questions
How many movies do you usually watch in theater every month?
Where do you get the information about upcoming movie in the theather?
How much earlier the plan is in place?
Do you check review before booking?
How do you make the bookings? Offline/ online split?
In case of online, which platform do you use?
What do you dislike about your current booking experience?
Organizing the interviews was the challenging part of the user research process – but conducting them was highly exciting. Listening to event planners talk about their passion, desires, and challenges helped me to understand their needs and goals and further refine the problem statement.
The user group confirmed initial assumptions user expectations for convenience. The young generation wants digital booking options and soft copy of the tickets rather than standing in queue and getting paper tickets.
User Pain Points
Waiting in queue
Waiting in queue to get the tickets consumes a lot of time and is tiring.
Not able to get specific seats
The seat selection in the queue based system is random and the chances of getting the desired seats is very less.
Difficult to find information about upcoming movies
The information about upcoming movies in the nearby theaters and timings is difficult to find.
User Journey Map
A User Example...
User Persona
Shiply is an undergraduate student who loves to watch movies with her friends and requires an app to check the availability of tickets in a theater and book the tickets before reaching the theater.
Competitive Audit
To identify what type of problems users face with competitor’s products, as well as understand what users might expect from the product, potential competitors were chosen for conducting an competitive audit.
Book My Show
Strength
Includes not just the movie booking, but also other events in nearby areas/city
Weakness
lot of screens in the whole process, affects the experience of a customer
Opportunities
Use AI/machine learning to predict movies for the customers.
Threats
Personalized suggestions to the customer
JusTickets
Opportunities
Including more theater options could help customers in selection
Threats
-
Apps with more focus on UI and UX
-
Apps with better theater and movie listings
Strength
-
Specific filters make selection easy
-
Available at lot of places/citiese
Weakness
-
No language selection option
-
Not many theater available on the platform
Starting the Designs
Paper Wireframes
Taking the time to draft iterations of each screen of the app on paper ensured that the elements that made it to digital wireframes would be well-suited to address user pain points. For the home screen, I prioritize showing the latest and upcoming movies and their trailers on the home screen.
Digital Wireframes
As the initial design phase continued, it was made sure to base screen designs on feedback and findings from the user research.
Low Fidelity Prototype
Using the completed set of digital wireframes, I created a low-fidelity prototype. The primary user flow I connected was adding and planning a new event, so the prototype could be used in a usability study.
Usability Study
I conducted two rounds of usability studies. 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.
-
Users want to add multiple events.
-
Users wanted customization options for themes and events.
-
The plan new event option was not clear.
-
Vendor selection was confusing.
-
Reaching back to home screen was complicated.
Refine the Design
Mockups
Early designs allowed for selecting seats and date/time on different screens, but after usability studies, I combined them on 1 screen, which allowed for easy selection for customers.
Before Usability Study
After Usability Study
Final Mockups
High Fidelity Prototypes
The final high-fidelity prototype presented cleaner user flows for planning and managing an event. The link to high-fidelity prototype: High Fidelity Prototype
Takeaways
Impact:
The app makes users feel like their needs are taken care-off.
One quote from peer feedback:
“The app designs made it so easy to plan my events! I would definitely use this app for managing all my events.”
What I learned:
While designing WeddingMakers, I learned that the first ideas for the app are only the beginning of the process. Usability studies and peer feedback influenced each iteration of the app’s designs.
Next Steps
Conduct another round of usability studies to validate whether the pain points users experienced have been effectively addressed.
1
Conduct more user research to determine any new areas of need.
2
bottom of page