Nicole Chai.
User Research
I conducted user interviews with five participants who enjoy going to movie theatres. From the user interviews, I was able to better understand the different challenges of ordering snacks at the movie theatres from several different perspectives. Some users mentioned that they are unwilling to leave their seats to get more food in the middle of a movie as they would have to miss parts of the movie. Others also mentioned that it's frustrating that they are able to purchase movie and snacks combos online, but are unable to specify their food order. As such, they have to wait in line again to order and collect their snacks. This research helped to confirm my assumptions of movie-goers wanting a more convenient way to order snacks in a movie theatre.
From these interviews, I identified three major pain points:
The Users
Based on these interviews, I created personas, user journey map and empathy maps to identify the needs and pain points of the users.
Aisyah is a mother of three daughters who needs a mobile app for her to easily customise different snack orders and have them delivered directly to her seat, because she always struggles to carry all the snacks back to the seats.
Bob is a 23 year-old student, who needs a mobile app for him to easily order movie snacks in advance and collect them before the movie, because there is always a long queue for movie snacks and he does not want to miss parts of the movie because of it.
User Journey Maps
Mapping out the user journeys helped me to visualise the end-to-end experience that a potential would go through and what kind of pain points they would experience at the different touch points.. This helped me to discover potential issues to avoid, and identify opportunities to improve their overall experience.
Storyboards
I created both the big picture and close-up storyboards for one of my personas, Bob, to help me better empathise with the users. The big picture storyboard focuses on the overall user experience, whereas the close-up storyboard focuses on the specific actions completed by the user within the app.
Big Picture Storyboard
Close-up Storyboard
Starting the Design
Paper Wireframes
I sketched out five different versions of the snacks page to experiment with different ways to organise the information. Based on these different versions, I came up with a refined version of the snack page. I also identified what I believed worked best on each screen and put those ideas into the digital wireframes.
Digital Wireframes
Next, I used Figma to create the digital wireframes foreach screen. This helped me to better visualise how the product would look like.
I made sure that the screen designs were based on the input and findings from the preliminary user research.
The snacks product page allows users to easily customise their snacks based on their dietary preferences.
Low-fidelity Prototype
The low-fidelity prototype connected the main user flow, which was focused on ordering movie snacks using the app. With this, I am able to conduct usability studies and gather feedback.
Usability Studies
I conducted two rounds of moderated usability studies with five participants each. For the usability tests, I requested the users to complete a few tasks on the low-fidelity prototype and speak out their thoughts and feelings. Additionally, I also asked them to answer a few follow-up questions after the test. These recordings were all analysed and I created a note taking spreadsheet which helped build affinity diagrams.I took down notes in a spreadsheet and then created affinity diagrams using Google Jamboard.
The affinity diagram helped me to discover patterns, insights and themes from the two rounds of usability studies. I then noted down the major findings I got from the usability tests.
Refining the Design
Mockups
The usability study has helped me to identify areas of improvement in my design. For the order summary page,I added a “Add Items” button to make it easier for users to add more than one item to cart.
From my second usability study, I identified that users would like to be able to collect and redeem rewards. As such, I added in a rewards section, which allows users to choose if they want to redeem their points. Additionally, if the users are signed in to their account, they can accumulate reward points for every successful purchase.
High-fidelity Prototype
Based on the insights gathered from the usability studies, I created the high-fidelity prototype which presented a clearer user flow.
View the prototype here
Accessibility Considerations
To make the app accessible, I considered the needs and feedback of users and applied what I learnt into the designs, creating a inclusive and accessible experience for everyone.
Takeaways
Impact
This app makes it quick and easy for users to order their movie snacks in advance, and provide convenient pick-up and delivery methods to enhance the movie going experience for all users.
What I've Learned
One of the biggest takeaways from this project is the importance of usability studies. It helps me to better understand what works well for the users and also highlights areas of improvement to create a better final product. In the future, I would try out other methods of usability studies to compare the differences to better understand the various types of usability tests.
As part of the Google UX Design Certificate program, I created a conceptual movie snack ordering app for a fictional movie theatre, The Reel. Many movie goers like to buy their tickets online to skip the physical queues but still end up having to wait in line to order their movie snacks. This app aims to solve this problem by providing users with the option of ordering and customising their snacks in advance. Users can then choose to pick them up before the movie, or have them delivered directly to their seats.
Dec 2021 - Jan 2022
The Reel
ROLE
UI/UX Designer
User research, Conducting user interviews, Wireframing, Prototyping, Conducting usability studies
