Springboard Capstone Project — Spring 2023
Creating a space for movie lovers to connect, share, and geek out together
Timeline
2 weeks
Role
UX Researcher, User Interface Designer, Usability Testing
Tools
Figma
Miro
INTRODUCTION
This comment sparked an idea for my capstone project during the Springboard bootcamp. As a passionate moviegoer myself, I believe movies are more than entertainment—they’re an experience. I love analyzing themes, exploring cast details, reading reviews, and connecting with others who share the same excitement.
My goal with this project was to create a platform that addresses common pain points for movie lovers, enhancing every aspect of the movie-watching experience.
PROBLEM DISCOVERY
The lack of a dedicated social networking platform for movie enthusiasts
HERE'S WHAT I FOUND…
The most popular movie reviews apps currently are IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and Letterboxd.
However, Letterboxd has a more prominent social networking presence and is publicly known as a social networking app.
KEY FINDINGS
users primarily engage with Letterboxd for personal use rather than community interaction, highlighting challenges within its social features.
I dug deeper into users' overall feedback on the app, uncovering two Reddit discussions where users expressed similar frustrations. Many highlighted issues with the community, noting that it was often dominated by irrelevant or "joke" reviews, rather than meaningful discussions or genuine opinions.
Fig 1. Reddit comments on the discussion “What are your thoughts on Letterboxd/How do you feel about the Letterboxd community”
USER INTERVIEWS
The Need for Tailored Recommendations and Privacy
Through user interviews, I uncovered two key pain points that moviegoers commonly struggle with: difficulty finding new movies that match their preferences and a desire for a more private social media experience. Many users expressed a preference for sharing and discussing films primarily with friends and family, rather than engaging with a broader public audience.
When asked…
Could you tell me about any challenges you’ve experienced when trying to find new movies to watch?
How important is it to you that the app allows you to share your thoughts on movies with other users?
SCENARIOS
Understanding the users’ struggles
After identifying my users' main pain points through interviews and competitive analysis, I created user scenarios to better understand their perspectives. This process allowed me to step into their shoes, deepen my empathy, and gain a clearer understanding of the challenges they face.
Emma: Tailored Recommendations
After finishing a thriller, Emma is on the hunt for something similar, but all the suggestions she finds online are either irrelevant or not exactly what she’s looking for. She checks a few movie apps and even browses social media, but the suggestions are all over the place. She’s frustrated because none of the suggestions seem to align with her love for movies with unexpected twists and thought-provoking plots. Emma spends more time searching than actually watching, and she feels like there's no good platform where she can easily discover the right movies for her.
Alex: Privacy
After finishing a movie, Alex loves debriefing his thoughts by reading reviews or online discussions. However, he’s hesitant about sharing his opinions on public forums where conversations can get harsh, and he fears being judged. Instead, Alex chooses to text his friends or write his thoughts down privately in his notes app. He feels the loss of an opportunity to connect with others who share his passion, but he values his privacy and comfort.
STORYBOARD
Visualizing how the solution can help the users
Building on the user scenarios, I created storyboards to visualize how users would interact with the app to address their specific pain points. These storyboards provided a clear, tangible depiction of the app's potential to solve their problems.
Emma: Tailored Recommendations
Alex: Privacy
For Alex’s scenario, I developed two potential storyboards: the first involves a "friends only" option for sharing reviews, while the second features a private group chat to discussing the movie with friends.
INITIAL DESIGN EXPLORATION
Early ideas to tackle the problem
Before narrowing down the key pain points through more in-depth research, I began with broad design explorations to tackle a variety of potential challenges faced by movie enthusiasts. This phase was focused on generating ideas and experimenting with features that could improve the overall movie-watching and sharing experience.
SKETCHES AND WIREFRAMES
I developed sketches and wireframes showcasing potential features to add including an onboarding questionnaire to personalize recommendations, feedback options for refining suggestions, and tools for creating and managing movie lists.
FIRST ITERATION OF FINAL DESIGN
I proceeded to design the initial iteration of the app’s interface. This iteration was an early step toward refining the solution and was intended to gather feedback for further improvements.
USABILITY TESTING
Clarifying button functions, adding a search bar, and resolving clickability confusion
Through two usability testing sessions, I identified both the strengths and weaknesses of the final design. Key insights included user confusion between the "like movie" and "like recommendation" buttons, the absence of a search bar when adding movies to a list, and uncertainty about whether the review button was clickable.
FINAL DESIGN REVAMP (1/2025)
Revisiting this project, I recognized several mistakes I made along the way, which motivated me to rework the final solution. I decided to revamp the design to create a cleaner, more polished look while addressing the users' core pain points more effectively.
What went wrong?
Too Many Features, Not Enough Focus on Core Problems
As this was my first UI/UX design project, I got a bit carried away with excitement during the design process. I ended up cramming in too many features, losing focus on the core problems I set out to solve. While I aimed to create the ultimate app for moviegoers, I unintentionally designed something that was no different from existing platforms.
THE SOLUTION
The New and Improved Silverscreen App
REFLECTION
First Iterations are Just the Beginning. The biggest lesson I learned from revisiting this project is that it’s not only okay but essential for a design to go through multiple iterations before reaching its final form. I initially felt disappointed with the first iteration of the final design, knowing it didn’t fully meet its potential. Redoing this project taught me that first designs are rarely the best and that, in real-world projects, there’s always an opportunity to refine, improve, and iterate until the design truly shines.
Stay Focused on the Core Problem. It’s easy to get carried away with designing and adding every feature imaginable, but I learned that the key is to always stay grounded in the problem you’re trying to solve. Retracing your steps and ensuring you’re addressing the core issue should come first. There will always be opportunities to refine and introduce additional features in future iterations.
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