As an avid media consumer and self-proclaimed cinephile, I have always loved the cinematic experience, especially when that experience is shared with friends or other film enthusiasts. I always believed that a good film or TV show can not only be a conversation starter but also a point of intellectual connection and an easy way to build shared experiences.
It is based on those motivations that I designed this platform that would bring a new level of emotional and social connectivity to a more comprehensive streaming experience.
Most popular streaming platforms today don’t offer any opportunities for users to connect with the movies or series they watch beyond the level of giving it a favorable thumbs up or adding it to a watchlist. The lack of any social aspects to the watching experience makes the streaming interaction feel emotionally disconnected and lackluster.
In recent years, as various streaming platforms have become increasingly exclusive, users have also become more divided with the platforms they use. It is not uncommon for a user to have subscriptions to multiple platforms.
This lack of a central hub for streaming makes film discovery difficult and can turn users off from watching. How can we make this tedious process of searching for a quick watch easier?
The 18-34 age group, commonly referred to as millennials and Gen Z, is often the primary demographic for VOD streaming platforms. In fact, over 22% of Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ users are made up of millennials as they are increasingly embracing digital entertainment options in recent years.
Then, I interviewed 5 millennials who said they enjoy streaming or would like to get more into streaming to understand their values, goals, and frustrations. These are some main takeaways from the interviews:
Ultimately, the competitors can be divided based on their primary functions: platforms that mainly offer VOD streaming (Netflix, Hulu, etc.), sites that are made for movie-tracking and logging (Letterboxd), and review and rating-based aggregators (Rotten Tomatoes).
As shown, each platform falls short in addressing user pain points in certain respects.
Soo…
Taking inspiration from Spotify’s activities list, I designed a friend's activities section on the homepage.
Right off the bat, the homepage displays friends’ activities such as online statuses as well as their recent watches and reviews. Users can immediately feel less alone in their viewing experiences.
To make the experience more social, users can create an alert that sends a notification to friends that they started watching something if the friend has already watched it or is in the process of watching it. No more “Have you seen this?” or “Watch this with me!!!”, one click of a button and they will know.
Users can join communities created for specific programs and read mini-discussion threads on the movies/series. This fosters social connections among users of Cinematica and creates a more emotional interaction with the platform.
I took inspiration from Letterboxd’s categorizing of reviews (distinct sections for friends, popular, and recent reviews), and in combination with feedback from users who said they trust friends’ reviews more than reviews from unknown users, I adapted the system to visually prioritize friends’ reviews and also made the layout cleaner so that all categories of reviews can be seen at once.
Letterboxd has a simple yet effective catalog system that allows users to log the movies they have watched. I took a similar approach and designed an activity log that is on each content details page that would keep track of the user’s activities related the movie/series. Users will be able to log, rate, review, and heart programs, and save them to lists.
One of the biggest inconveniences that users face with using multiple streaming services is the fact that they have to search through each service distinctly for content they want to watch. This makes the process of content discovery tedious, inefficient, and oftentimes, unproductive.
In order to make the process of content discovery on Cinematica more efficient and intuitive, I created multiple entryways for users to discover the media that they want to watch.
Ultimately, I am happy that the overall look of the design aligns with the vision I had in mind when I first started the project. It is also through this project that I fully reconciled with my love for blurred backgrounds/glassmorphism. :)
Through the ideation, creation, and revision processes, I learned the importance of:
→ Using negative space as a visual element
→ How to use colors and when to limit them
→ How to create an interface that encourages user connectivity within the platform.
These concepts were pivotal in shaping my design skills, and they helped me grow as a designer.
One thing that I could have improved on for this project is the slight inconsistency in the logos I used since they did not all come from the same package.
One of the key parts of design is iteration. So I will be doing usability testing and using user feedback to create the next iteration of this design.
