Popcorn Madness
Sudha Rachel
User Experience Designer
In this 4 week long project that was a part of my UX Design certificate course with Google, I designed an app that is dedicated to help users order or pre-order food at cinemas of their choice. I conducted User Research, built User personas followed by wireframes, Low and high fidelity prototypes along with a lot of Usability Tests throughout the process.
Check out the links below to go directly to sections or scroll to observe the entire case study -
Challenge and Solution
SOLUTION: My app, Popcorn Madness is exclusively designed to help users order food at the cinemas in a simplified way. Following are a few of the main perks of the app
Preliminary Research
PRELIMINARY USER RESEARCH SUMMARY: Different methods of User Research have been followed at different stages of this project. We started with secondary research to understand the product needed, conducted interviews to better know the struggles faced by users, followed by competitive audits and usability studies to test the prototypes as well.
Following were the most important research goals considered-
USER PERSONAS: Based on the people interviewed, I’ve narrowed their personalities down to the following personas-
USER RESEARCH PAIN POINTS: After careful consideration of data synthesized from the User Research conducted, the following seemed to be the most common pain points faced by users-
1. People found their experience being disturbed if they had to get snacks during a cinema
2. Long queues at the cinemas made it difficult for a lot of people to get snacks, specially when they’re running late
3. Long queues at the cinemas made it difficult for a lot of people to get snacks, specially when they’re running late
4. People with temporary or situational challenges needed help carrying snacks to their seats
INSIGHTS: People need an easier way to order food at the cinemas.
Ideation
STORYBOARDS AND SKETCHES:
WIREFRAMES & PROTOTYPES: I then brought my idea to an interactive digital low-fidelity prototype and brought it to five potential users to collect feedback. I initially used 32 frames to cover every part of the User’s experience.
Usability Studies
USABILITY STUDIES: After the prototype was made, it was sent for testing. 5 diverse set of users were selected for this study and the results were categorized as follows:
.png)
USABILITY STUDY FINDINGS: 2 rounds of unmoderated usability studies were conducted with a diverse set of audience and the following problems were identified-
ROUND 1 FINDINGS:
1) 5 out of 5 users found it difficult to add an item to the basket
2) 3 out of 5 users wanted to customize their food
3) 2 out of 5 users found difficulty in finding the tracking page
ROUND 2 FINDINGS:
1) 2 out of 5 users found it difficult to read text in yellow backgrounds
2) 2 out of 5 users were confused about where the seat numbers could be added too
Iterations
ITERATIONS: I made three major modifications based on the feedback that I received from the usability testing sessions. I took note of the user comments and suggestions, and worked hard to implement them in a way that would provide the best user experience possible. My goal was to create a product that was easy to understand, efficient to use, and enjoyable to interact with. To achieve this, I paid close attention to the user feedback and made changes accordingly.
ITERATION 1 : High contrast colours had been selected to make it easy for people with low vision to use the app too. User was the centre of the design and everything has been designed in a way to simplify the experience
ITERATION 2&3 : Changes had been made in accordance to the users pain points and option to add seat numbers had been given too. Customization had also been added to the menu.
Final Designs
WHAT I LEARNED: This process made me understand User Experience design better and helped me understand the importance of keeping the User front right and center of the design process. There is so much more to User Experience, than just Interaction Design. Conducting tests with real users helped me understand the design from various perspectives that were comparatively very different to mine.
I thoroughly enjoyed making the app and am looking forward to my next project!
