IMDb App Redesign — A UX/UI Case Study
A redesign of IMDb‘s app that modernizes the look and ‘improves’ the User Experience
I’ve always thought there’s a way to improve how the IMDb app is doing. As the most extensive database for all sources of movies, shows, and clips, IMDB is supposed to be easily accessible, more efficient, and better-looking for users to explore.
Role Sole UX Designer (UX Research, UI Design)
Duration 3 Weeks
Tools Zoom, Google Sheet, Photoshop, Figma
Client Self project
Launch Project here.
Background Story
Back in the day, finding a perfect movie to watch was never easy; you either heard of this movie from someone suggesting, read the summary of that movie from somewhere or just happened to randomly select this movie on TV.
IMDb has always been my favorite website whenever I want complete information about specific movies; after realizing they have an app to download, I was so excited, hoping to create a movie list and search for more I haven’t watched. As I was scrolling through their app, I realized how it is lacking in so many ways that now, after studying user experience for a while, I figured it is time to make a difference.
The Challenge
Most people search for movie information before deciding what to watch.
After typing into the search bar on their phone, 40% of the participants clicked on the IMDb website without notice. Reading through every information needed, they don’t even bother to recognize the website they are using. With that being said, how is it possible for IMDb to attract more users using their app?
My Mission
Design an intuitive user flow to upgrade the user experience and user interface for the IMDb app. My approach needed to be all-inclusive and cohesive, creating a personalized experience for users of this app.
First Stage — Empathize
📈 Market Research + Competitive Analysis
Searching through Appstore, I analyzed the three similar apps surrounding this goal/productivity space. The three mobile apps I chose had the most similar concept according to the above solutions and what I am looking to design. These apps might not have as much data as IMDb; however, they provide some of those high demanding functions on the market that are great to consider including in my redesign.
Three evaluations I choose to analyze are:
How similar are these apps towards the solutions, and what are the features?
How other ways are they providing users with unique features and functions?
What are their downfalls?
These great apps all focus on structuring a great personal user experience, from taste-based exploring to creating lists and integrating with streamers. Some of them also provided movie schedules to search and even purchase options; most of them are closely aligned with what our goal is for the redesign concept.
🧠 Brainstorming
After the comparative/ competitive analysis, I came up with some ideas to incorporate into the redesign. These assumptions will also be included in the user interview and open to adjustment after the investigation.
👥 The Users
Before starting to structure questions and interview participants, I decided not only to include users that are movies and TV shows enthusiasts or passionate movie lovers; but also those who casually view or are interested in knowing more about details and information about specific movies and TV shows.
🎙️ Interviews
To understand users before confirming my hypothesis, I conducted Interviews and Surveys for my Research Plan after interviewing participants. After the first interview with potential and original users, I filtered the participants to emphasize users better and define problems. I had a second round of interviews with users already using IMDB.
Step 1: With all users,
Here are a few general questions that I included in all the interactions :
Do you search or read about the movie before watching it?
On a scale of 1–5, how important it is to know some information about this movie before watching it?
Have you ever used the app IMDb before?
Would you want to use an app to keep track of what movie you’ve watched?
According to the Survey I organized on Google Form to observe any pattern and similarity in what the potential users may want. A total of 35+ people responded to the survey, which assisted me in framing the problem correctly.
Analyzing the responses received,
35/38 of the users search or read about the movie before watching it.
35/38 of the users care about knowing some information about the film before watching it.
17/38 of the users had experience using IMDb before.
25/38 users might want to keep track of movies they’ve seen.
Step 2: With IMDb Users,
Here are a few general questions that I included in all the interactions :
How often do you go on IMDb?
Do you use the IMDb web version or mobile, or both?
What are the primary purposes you would use IMDb for?
How much do you enjoy suggestion content from IMDb?
In your opinion, IMDb can do better in which way?
Analyzing the responses received,
Key Quotes directly from users:
“ I love keeping track of what movies I’ve seen before; that way, I can easily share a list with my friends and check if there’s anything missed.”
“ IMDb is like one of those famous websites for movie information. However, their apps are hard to use…using a website on a desktop is fine, but their terrible visuals on smartphones bugs me.”
“ I tried to use IMDb some times, the app experience is alright, but I am not that satisfied with their list saving function.. very confusing, I can’t be sure where to click when I want to save, and finding the generated list is hard too. ”
“ Normally, I love IMDb for having so much content. I wish they had a Chat function available; that way, I could share information with my friends who are also using the app.”
“ If I can filter or follow a specific actor or director would be great; their filters available right now are really..useless.”
Research Synthesize
After interviewing all participants, a dominating percentage expected the app to include more features than it is doing now. Also, most importantly, regarding the UI design of this app, many users claimed that the UI right now looks very outdated. Lacking function and old-fashioned visuals can deter existing and potential users, or even worse, forever quitting this app.
Combining all the above, I can now synthesize my research and better understand my users and their main frustrations and goals. I have a better picture of what kind of app users might expect and features that will be great to include.
Second Stage — Define
🙋 Personas
Below I created two different User Personas based on the target user group and all the information gathered by the research. These two fictional characters represent the target user groups of the app.
✅ Hypothesis Statements
I believe it will help save time and keep tracking if users Claude can create and organize their favorite or want to watch movies and TV shows into lists within the app.
I believe it will help improve the experience if user Christina can get a tailored suggestion based on her tastes and updates on her following celebrities.
💡 Ideation
Combining all the above, I can now synthesize my research and better understand my users and their main frustrations and goals. I came up with a few concepts and detailed features I want to include in this app; the goal is to provide a useful app for users.
- Sharing and Chatting Interaction with Friends
- Personal list for users to create collections on their criteria
- Improve feed on explore page, help the app learn more about the user, hence show each one a unique feed of news that varies depending on the chosen tags.
Instead of a website, users can only search or navigate around browsing specific information. We want the IMDb app to be a more exclusive experience. Whenever users talk about an actor or are just wondering what to watch during dinner, they can open IMDb and immediately receive what they are looking for, increasing the engagement rate with this app.
Third Stage — Ideate
🎨 The Redesign
Home Tab
The home page is the first expression for users when they open the app; the preliminary information should be placed in the right place as the first step to increasing engagement to continue using the app.
The original UI design was outdated and didn’t fit the recent trend. There was too much information to stay clean and consistent, but the lack of exciting interaction seemed tedious. I decided to structure the page with interactive elements and various sizing components and valorize list features for users bringing more interactions and discovery.
List Tab
Invite others to share the list for friends, roommates, and family members. Users don’t need to share URLs but can follow the same list within the app.
Fourth Stage — Testing
📬 Testing and Feedback
After the first design was complete, I tested the prototype with seven representative users to see how user-friendly the applications were. The test was conducted over video calls and in-person interviews, where they were given the following tasks while I observed how they navigated through the application.
Tasks
- Click on one movie in the Home and Explore Tab for further details.
- Check other users that are sharing the same list.
- Rate one movie
- Navigate to the messages page and read message history from others.
I gathered all responses to the prototype; participants could navigate through the app fairly easily. They could perform the benchmark tasks efficiently and gave the following inputs on where they got confused and how some steps made it hard to complete.
Feedback to make the experience better
Some icons are too small, especially the ones in the List Tab.
Where can I personalize my feed?
The List Tab looks a bit confusing. Am I able to name my list? Or there are only three categories available.
The Explore Tab seems quite confusing. Is there another type of selection I can choose?
Implementing Feedback and final product.
The suggestions from usability testing were considered, and the following changes were made.
You can find my final project here.
Last Stage — Final Thoughts
👀 Reflections
I enjoyed this redesign as I got to fully transit my idea into a design and test with users, proving my research and getting feedback supporting my investigations. However, innovation can never be complete; it can always upgrade and evolve.
If I got more time, I would come back by adding more features or functions; as an app needs users to engage more often, there is always space to update and redesign.
Thank you for your time reading my Case Study article. I hope you found it interesting and if you have any questions, let me know in the comments!
If you have a business proposal or if you want to hire me, contact me via email: tiffanieliang@gmail.com
