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Beyond the algorithm: discover movies you'll actually love
An iOS app that makes it easier to pick movies and TV shows while giving you more choices to personalize your preferences.
Problem
Despite the sheer number of movies and series that are available on various platforms, people still feel overwhelmed with finding interesting content that matches their preferences.
Users feel that current platforms provide generic recommendations that don't accurately reflect their individual moods and tastes at a particular moment and with particular people.
Solution
Design an app that allows people to find content that matches their tastes, suits their current mood, and fits a particular situation.
"This is very uncomfortable and frustrating. You want to quickly find something cool, watch it, and recharge your batteries, but end up spending your time looking for a movie or series."
Research
Firstly, I started with market research to find out whether there are applications that can solve this problem or not. After checking several apps and platforms, I came to the conclusion that most of the apps focus on reviews or social sharing and movie updates or tracking.
Analysis of these apps revealed their core features, strengths, and weaknesses. They mainly provide functions that help people organize their movies and TV shows, see and share reviews and ratings, save favorites, check their own statistics, and share their experiences with their friends. It helped me to understand the key features that users got used to and their basic expectations from this kind of app.
Also, I downloaded and checked some other apps that allow people to look for content, organize it, and have a social component to get some ideas on how to improve user experience and create useful features.
Users feel that many platforms provide generic recommendations that don't accurately reflect their individual tastes and preferences at a particular moment. They struggle to find content that suits their current mood or specific atmosphere.
Finding a movie with a partner or friends might be really challenging because of the different preferences. Users often spend a lot of time trying to find the perfect match, but can’t find anything and end up not watching a single movie.
Complex UI often causes a reluctance to use an app further
Users don’t like to write long reviews but often check them to analyze content. Also, they often watch trailers to understand the plot.
Without a sense of engagement or gamification, users might lose interest in the platform over time.
Persona development
Using the information from my interviews I created a persona that reflects the respondent’s goals, frustrations, and needs.
Transform needs into features
With my understanding of Margarita's needs, frustrations, and motivations, I pointed out several main capabilities that the app would focus on:
Advanced search, filters, and profiles.
Learn more about user tastes and preferences.
Key impressions about a movie/series transformed into tags.
Simple interface.
Highlighting user tastes.
Simplifying the process of adding a review.
Improving the process of finding matching movies/series.
Adding notifications to remind users to rate a movie/series.
Application map
To organize the content into categories and understand where I can fit features that the user needs in a way that would be intuitive, I created an application map.
Sketches
To establish the content layout, I sketched out wireframes for screens that the user would need in order to complete her main tasks.
I also created a black-and-white high-fidelity prototype to test three main paths with users.
Revisions
After several tests, I realized that some application features are unclear or interfere with users.
For example, I planned to show the mood selection screen immediately upon entering the application (every day). But while testing it, I figured out that it’s inconvenient for users, because sometimes they want to quickly enter the app and do something that isn’t related to selecting movies.
Also, I removed filtering by genres and themes as the main from the search screen, because such a location turned out to be less intuitive for users. As a result, I opted to place it on the Home screen, instead.
UI Design
In crafting the brand identity, I wanted to focus on combining the nostalgia of classic movies and a contemporary thread of innovation. I preferred not to use the black and red color palette, despite the fact that people usually recall these colors while thinking about movies and cinema.
Along with that, I wanted to keep a dark background and avoid using light and bright colors. It helps to prevent eyestrain while using the app in low-light conditions.
The logo depicts the metaphor of flipping through a list of movies, searching for that perfect film. It also refers to the primary section on the Home screen, where users scroll through films handpicked by the application.
Key features
Advanced onboarding
Throughout the onboarding journey, the application requests information on the user's prior movie-watching history and their personal preferences, including favorite genres. This enables the application to curate a selection of movies and series based on the provided information, resulting in more personalized recommendations.
Choosing genres and themes
Each day, the user has the option to select genres and topics that align with their mood or situation. Categorizing movies and series not just by genre but also by topic will empower the user to quickly find the right movie or series.
Finding a match
This feature offers a convenient method to explore movies or series suitable for both the user and their friend. Leveraging personal preferences, ratings, and viewing history, the application carefully curates content to align with their shared tastes. Furthermore, this list may be fine-tuned to perfection through the thoughtful application of filters.
