Vancouver Film Festival

A redesign of VIFF’s mobile app that aims to help enthusiasts be better informed about the films offered outside the festival. Take a look at the final prototype here

ROLE- User Research/ UX/ UI/ Visual Design
TEAM- Jordan Yep/ Michelle Shen/ Sandy Bagga
PROGRAMS- Figma/ Photoshop

Role

Although we all took part in discussions, audits, and decision making, my main task was helping with our test creation, as well as the visual design and UI for Version A of the solution. During our user tests, I was also tasked to be the note taker; looking at what the user does, says, reacts, and putting that into note form for easy analysis later on. Some of my less prominent tasks included writing copy of our findings, and summarizing the main heuristics broken for parts of the app.

If you want a more in depth look, view the slides here.

Business Problem

VIFF is most known for their annual film festival which happens between October and September for 2 weeks. However, moviegoers often don’t hear about the films offered yearlong by VIFF. Our team found an opportunity to increase the awareness of these films through using VIFF’s current mobile application; as there was an opening for us to incorporate membership and pass checking features.
During our sprint, our main question lied in how we could get moviegoers to see value beyond the annual festival, and why they should purchase a membership. With this, we took to create more of a guideline for ourselves by making a persona and condensing our “how might we” questions.

User Testing

Our user testing went along the lines of this:
01 Pre-test Questionnaire Gauge audience’s interest and knowledge in watching independent films.
02 Tasks: Ver. A & B Using Think Aloud to test navigation elements, membership alerts, saving a film, and accessibility to screenings.
03 Post-test Questionnaire clarify film searching process, sought feedback on categorization and UI elements.

Our team tested two different versions – Version A with a more traditional interface and Version B, to integrate the brand direction of VIFF. Both were tested at partly high fidelity to match and communicate the unique branding VIGG currently offers.

For a more in depth look at our user testing plan, click here.

Audit & Redesign

Home Screen

Films List

Film Description

Hamburger Menu

Membership

Test Results

3/4 testers satisfied on the new streamlined navigation designs.
4/4 preferred Version A’s interface over Version B’s interface.

People appreciated the film screening swipe up card in Version B.All participants expected the profile to be in the menu drawer. (Version B)Although the visual design was appreciated in Version B, Version A had more familiar interactions and customization.

Reflection

One of the main challenges within this project was making sure to align all design decisions and test questions with the sprint sprint goals. If we created a feature or made a major change within the app, I would always think back to how it would relate to our HMW questions; or how it would help answer it. Similarly, the user test questions also had to give valuable information rather than just general "context." I asked myself, "Do we need this information? What is it being used for, and why do we need it?"

It was also difficult to keep the user test bias free when creating the questionnaire; and make sure each question wasn't asked in a leading way. For example, questions were tailored so that knowledge from going through Version A won't affect Version B. In this case, informational questions regarding membership knowledge were put in the post test questionnaire.

Through this project I learnt how to research, write, and conduct a user test. Guidelines and heuristics were chosen as well which made our audits and design decisions very focused and efficient. Qualitative and quantitative based questions were chosen as well to get a good balance between supporting data and overall impression. I'd say my biggest takeaway was to be able to think methodically, while validating assumptions in a research driven way.

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