spec • ux research • ui design

Creating a mobile ticketing app for movie theaters

Flickeroo is an app designed to work in collaboration with cinema centers in Athens.

The mission is to improve movie goers’ experience when choosing a theater and booking their tickets. Users will be able to book tickets for any cinema within the app.

Project duration: June to August 2021

Project overview

The problem

Moviegoers in Athens don’t have mobile options for booking tickets to movie theaters and are stuck with web browser versions that don’t perform responsively on mobile devices.

The goal

Design an app that helps users book cinema tickets for their movie of choice from different theaters, all in one place, while providing added convenience features.

My role

UX designer designing the Flickeroo app from conception to hand-off delivery.

Responsibilities

• Conducting research

• Creating personas and user journeys

• Defining problem and hypothesis statements

• Conducting interviews

• Ideation processes

• Creating paper and digital wireframing

• Low and high-fidelity prototyping

• Competitive audit

• Conducting usability studies

• Accounting for accessibility

• Iterating on designs.

Understanding the user

Research & Insights

I conducted interviews and created empathy maps to understand the users I’m designing for and their needs.

A primary user group identified through research was high-school and college students, who often go to the movies and feel comfortable organizing their lives through their phones.

This user group confirmed initial assumptions about the customers, but research also revealed that mobile was not the only factor limiting users from booking tickets.

Other problems included poor current user interfaces and a lack of additional features made possible by research and design.

Pain points

No apps: At the time there are no mobile apps available for users to book their movie tickets in Athens, while web browser versions showed to be non-responsive on mobile.

Digital tickets: Because there is no dedicated app on the market, users have to download their tickets to their phones, or email them from their desktop computers.

Movie releases: My research shows that some potential users would want to be notified when new movie releases are out, with the option to tailor their preferences in a personal profile.

Problem statement

Katerina is a busy university student and coffee shop employee who needs an easy way to book movie tickets and be notified about new movie releases because she wants to invite her friends early when a movie comes out.

User journey map

Mapping Katerina’s user journey revealed how helpful it would be for
users to have access to a dedicated movie theater booking app.

Ideation

Knowing we would be targeting Katerina's pain points, and that we would be greeting our users on the app with recommended new movies releases to help users get started easily, I began drafting iterations of the home screen of the app on paper. ensuring that the elements that made it to digital wireframes would be well-suited to address the user's problem.

With these, we ran five concept tests and then settled on a user flow that we would use to begin creating a low-fidelity prototype. The key part of the user flow was determining the minimum amount of steps for a sequential model structure in order to finalize the booking of tickets.

Having understood the user flow needed to complete the main task, and as the initial design phase continued, I made sure to base screen designs on feedback and findings from the user research to develop mid-fidelity mockups.

Low-fidelity interactive prototype

Using the completed set of digital wireframes, I created a low-fidelity prototype. The primary user flow I connected was selecting a movie and booking tickets, so the prototype could be used in a usability study.

Refining the design

Usability study

I conducted an unmoderated usability study to reveal insights for the main user flow. An affinity diagram was used to collect findings and prioritize them. Findings from this testing helped guide the designs from a low-fidelity prototype to high-fidelity mockups.

High-priority findings

Users couldn’t select seats easily
Calendar interface was confusing at times
Users couldn’t choose a specific hall
Extra check-out confirmation wanted

Low-priority findings findings

Some wording needed refinement
Sharing tickets feature was seen as unuseful

Key mockups

High-fidelity interactive prototype

The final prototype presented cleaner user flows for choosing a date, time, seats, and proceeding to checkout. It also met the user's needs for an intuitive experience.