Cinema Aggregator App and Scheduling Dashboard Projects

I collaborated with a cinema and stakeholders in digital transformation of their daily scheduling management and an applications to facilitate closer engagement and better experience with customers. This application and dashboard solution aimed at streamlining their daily operations. The goal was to simplify how they manage movie schedules, track bookings, and improve overall efficiency through a centralized, user-friendly platform.I worked with the stakeholders in the cinema to create an application and dashboard digital solution that will help them manage their daily movie schedule and booking operations digitally.

Role

UX Researcher

UI Designer

Team

Project manager

Developers

Client

Users valuable insights

Meaningful and intuitive user interface  

Duration

Three - Four months 

Context

Cinema ABC operates across multiple locations and manages a range of daily activities—from scheduling and hall customisation to ticketing and event coordination. These activities require consistent communication and efficient systems to ensure smooth operations and engaging customer experiences.

Problem statement

The stakeholders at Cinema ABC were relying on fragmented and inefficient processes to manage core operations. They needed a sustainable, centralised solution to streamline scheduling, hall management, and ticketing.

Objective

Research, analyse and design a user-friendly feature that allows ABC cinema administrators to effortlessly schedule movies and an intuitive app to facilitate engagement and ticket bookings. 

Design Process: Double Diamond

Research

Discovery Phase

To uncover opportunities for sustainable digital transformation, I explored the entertainment landscape—focusing on cinema operations and video streaming. Using contextual inquiries and competitive analysis, I identified gaps in existing systems, gathered user insights, and evaluated market solutions. This groundwork revealed a need for an aggregator platform, operational dashboard, and ticket scanner tools to support cinema operations across multiple locations. The goal: improve customer engagement, streamline workflows, enhance accessibility, and drive higher conversion and ROI.

Contextual Inquiries

To understand how cinema staff and cinema-goers interact with existing systems in real-life settings, I conducted contextual inquiries by observing workflows and asking open-ended questions during daily operations. This approach helped reveal hidden pain points, workarounds, and unmet needs—insights that wouldn't surface through interviews alone. These findings informed user journeys, feature priorities, and design opportunities.

Competitive Analysis

I analysed key players in the cinema and streaming landscape to understand existing solutions, user expectations, and market gaps. This included examining platforms for their features, usability, design patterns, and performance. I evaluated both direct competitors (cinema scheduling apps, ticketing platforms) and indirect ones (streaming services) to identify best practices and areas for differentiation.

Key focus areas included:

  • Movie discovery experience

  • Booking flow and seat selection

  • Dashboard capabilities for staff

  • Accessibility and responsiveness

  • Brand tone and visual hierarchy

This analysis helped define what to adopt, adapt, or avoid in building a more user-centered and sustainable solution.

Challenge

One of my first challenges emerged early in the research phase during user recruitment. Due to the project’s scope and my inability to be physically present on location, I initiated recruitment through snowball sampling and by reaching out to potential participants in online group forums.

Key Insights

  • Users Struggle with Fragmented Access to Promotions and Updates

Due to the lack of a unified platform, users often miss out on timely information about showtimes, special events, or discounts—especially across different cinema chains or locations.

  •  Inconsistent Digital Experiences Cause Frustration

Users encounter varying levels of usability and functionality across different cinema websites and apps. This inconsistency complicates navigation, comparison, and ticket booking—especially for multi-location cinema chains.

 

  • Lack of Personalization Reduces Engagement

Users feel disconnected from cinema experiences that don’t reflect their preferences or viewing history. Without data-driven personalization, cinemas miss opportunities to deepen user loyalty and tailor content or promotions.

  • Smaller Cinemas Go Unnoticed

Many users are unaware of independent or smaller cinemas near them, primarily due to limited online visibility and lack of centralized discovery. This leads to missed opportunities for both audiences and cinema operators.

  • Users Are Increasingly Drawn to the Convenience of Streaming

With the rise of digital streaming platforms offering personalized, on-demand content, users expect cinema experiences to match that level of ease, accessibility, and relevance. When it falls short, they default to at-home viewing.

Affinity Diagram

Whiteboard Brainstorming

Userflow

Building on the user journey, I created seven user flows to visualize task completion paths and define screen-level interactions across the product experience.

Sketch to High Fidelity 

UX Design Principles

Final Solution

Design Principles (Justification)

Accessibility

Accessibility was a core consideration in the product design, with a focus on simplicity, consistency, and inclusive visual elements. This included thoughtful use of text styles, sizes, and color contrasts to ensure usability for all—especially users aged 30–55 who may have visual impairments or be less tech-savvy.

Clear Navigation

Streamlined the movie booking flow by leveraging user journey mapping and competitive analysis to reduce friction and create a faster, more intuitive experience.

Perceivability

The interface was designed with a user-first approach, ensuring clarity around the software’s purpose, the user’s next steps, and how to take them. The design leverages skeuomorphic elements inspired by familiar interfaces to provide intuitive visual cues and reduce the learning curve.

Form Validation

Form validation was a key usability feature in this project, aimed at reducing errors and enhancing user satisfaction. By combining inline validation for immediate feedback with post-submission checks, users were able to identify and correct mistakes more efficiently—ultimately creating a smoother and more confident completion experience."

Design System