IMDb app concept user experience
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Challenge
Redesign the experience, interface, interaction, and information architecture of the IMDb app. Being a movie lover and regular user of the IMDb app, I took initiative to improve the user experience, help users navigate through the app easily, and provide them a platform to keep up with their favorite movies & TV shows. |
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Overview
There isn't a movie-lover out there who doesn't know about IMDb. Entertainment is a vast industry and IMDb facilitates the user by providing every single piece of information right form show releases, ratings, to artist encyclopedia. Along with just the information, the IMDb app provides a wide range of elements such as trailers, free movies & shows, events, news, articles, and vlogs. Making this content accessible is a challenge. This redesign was part of my personal project intending to enhance the user experience as well as increase app engagement. |
fig: The original app design.
Sometimes it's difficult to find the current state in this app. |
Finding the pain point
Being a movie lover and a regular user of the IMDb app, there were a few issues I was facing. To validate if the other users were facing the same problems and if there are more I performed generative research with six more users of the app. I planned to solve the problems which were the most prominent.
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Finding the solutions in the UI
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1. Tab-bar is the best way for navigation to the different sections of the information architecture. The tab-bar in the original app is placed at the top, which makes it difficult to reach and makes the experience uncomfortable. Since the bottom navigation tab is a prevalent tool in most apps, I decided to implement it in my design.
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Thumb-zone mapping for left- and right-handed users.
(https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/09/the-thumb-zone-designing-for-mobile-users/) |
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With smartphones getting bigger with time, the thumb-reach getting smaller which makes navigation even more difficult for larger phones.
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The navigation tabs are placed in the bottom which makes them easily accessible. Also, the color-coded icons allow present state awareness.
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fig: Redesigned news information architecture concept
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2. The first thing that comes in our mind when we think of IMDb is movie information. But if we take a look at the landing page of the app, it is overcrowded with information that makes the landing page long endless scroll, and difficult to find relevant content.
So, I decided to sort all this additional out of the landing page and into a dedicated tab. |
Improvements made in the design
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My goal for this project was to improve on the existing design rather than designing a totally new interface for the app. I understand the importance of design systems and following the branding guidelines. So, I decided to make design improvements with as minimal alterations as possible. The following are a series of images that compare the original design and my redesigned version.
The changes to notice are listed as follows,
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High Fidelity Mockups
As I mentioned previously, the goal was to mitigate the pain-points users were facing and not to present a prettier looking interface. The following series of pictures will present the original app interface (left) and the redesigned concept (right.)
As I mentioned previously, the goal was to mitigate the pain-points users were facing and not to present a prettier looking interface. The following series of pictures will present the original app interface (left) and the redesigned concept (right.)
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Before
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After
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Original landing page with navigation elements at top
Original movie info screen
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Redesigned landing page with bottom nav-bar and
compact featured articles tab 
New movie info screen with click to play trailer
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Articles and born today can be seen to cover
the entire screen in the original design |
The new redesign is compact and has a modern aesthetics with
more info in smaller space |
Future Enhancements:
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Because my focus was not on the visual aspect and I wanted to comply with the branding of the app, I did not redesign the visual interface. In the future, I would like to redesign the UI to give it a new Skeuomorphic design.
I would also love to conduct more extensive research to pinpoint user needs. IMDB TV the free movie platform could be integrated into the new redesign. |
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Working prototype of the IMDb app concept
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Key Learnings:
One thing the I discovered was how social media has an effect on movie experience. In the future, I would love to work on integrating one of the most prominent feature on social media; story reel, into this app. Story reels are becoming an important part of entertainment apps.
Following the design guidelines, branding, and design systems was a great learning experience. Along with UI, designing the user interaction and considering ergonomics was the most interesting part of this project. |
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