Movie Ranking App for Friends
Watch Party
Background | Our “Why”
I undertook the challenge of devising a concept for a movie-ranking application geared towards enabling friends to effortlessly monitor and evaluate the extensive list of films they've enjoyed throughout the years. Demonstrating my rapid ideation capabilities, I successfully formulated Watch Party within a tight 48-hour timeframe. This innovative app aims to conclusively settle debates among friends about the superior films, providing a seamless solution for tracking and ranking their cinematic experiences.
Unleash the Power of Shared Cinematic Journeys – Rank, Rate, and Crown the Ultimate Movie with Your Crew!
Opportunity & Outcomes
In this concept project, I demonstrated my ability to efficiently tackle complex challenges, employing design thinking, concept strategy, and user-centric methodologies to achieve a robust outcome. The process encompassed rapid ideation, high-fidelity mockups, user flows, prototypes, and the implementation of design systems. I prioritized accessibility, adhering to WCAG standards, considering those with visual impairments. I also built my designs using foundations such as a 4-pixel grid system, a typographical system, an accessible color palette ensuring a visually appealing and inclusive product.
From a business perspective, despite lacking user data, this test project holds substantial market potential. Comparative data from indirect competitors, such as Rotten Tomatoes (80 million users) and IMDb (200 million users), underscores the sizable market reach. The unique differentiator, a social app connecting friend groups by their love for cinema, sets this concept apart. When juxtaposed with social media giants like Facebook and Instagram (2-3 billion users) or even Twitter (528 million users), the prospect of carving out a niche for a social platform tailored to film enthusiasts who prioritize opinions from their immediate circle becomes apparent. The potential impact is significant, presenting an opportunity for a groundbreaking product in the social media space.
Brainstorming & Research
I began by brainstorming and employing user-centered design, opting to simulate what a collaborative approach with peers and stakeholders looks like in my creative process. Utilizing free-listing and affinity mapping exercises, I efficiently identified and prioritized features for the app, ensuring a clear and streamlined development process aligned with stakeholder preferences. Brainstorming activities were done using Miro.
Sketching
Following the brainstorming session, I transitioned to sketching ideas on paper. Using the refined feature list, I developed concepts for different application flows, focusing on key interactions like adding friends, films, ranking, and reviewing. Additionally, I incorporated delightful elements, such as displaying movie details, "where to watch" recommendations, and an "add to watchlist" based on the idea that we could leverage IMDb API to assist us with these capabilities. The goal was not only to facilitate film ranking but also to foster a social component, encouraging friends to explore new movies based on aggregate rankings from the watch party.
Low-Fidelity (Wireframes)
Building on the sketches, I translated the concepts into early designs to envision the final user experience. I employed wireframes to arrange components on screens, representing potential views within the app. Each wireframe screen was systematically integrated into a detailed user flow, accompanied by a rationale for different features and sections. This comprehensive approach aimed to present an end-to-end experience, offering stakeholders a clear understanding of how the app would function.
Foundations & Components
After finalizing and gaining approval for the wireframes, I conducted a comprehensive audit of the components featured in the low-fidelity explorations. This audit served dual purposes: first, to ensure the creation of a flexible and visually appealing design that could easily accommodate content and global adjustments; and second, to establish foundational elements such as grid layout, accessible colors, typography, and spacing. The early establishment of these elements was crucial. I created a style guide to streamline the implementation of screens and built components with variants, simplifying the process for myself or a design team to construct and modify screens seamlessly. Additionally, I crafted fully custom icons to maintain a cohesive visual language across the entire application.
Branding
Injecting an element of enjoyment into the process, I coined the name "Watch Party" early on to underscore the collaborative nature of the experience with friends. The term "watch party" resonates with the concept of coming together and sharing an experience, aligning with the app's aim to spark conversations directly or indirectly through its reviews and rankings systems. The identity, conceived relatively swiftly, cleverly utilizes the "A"s in both "Watch" and "Party" to symbolize the dual dimensions of rankings within the app: the user's ranking and their friends' rankings. To enhance the identity, custom lettering was created, polished to harmonize with the golden ratio circles and reinforce a cohesive visual aesthetic.
High-Fidelity
I used the components to create detailed screens with a 4px grid. These screens were then brought to life in an interactive Figma prototype, giving a realistic preview of the Watch Party app.
