CineDash

The Challenge:

Long lines at the concession stand can cause movie theatergoers to miss part of the movie and/or not find a seat. The goal is to design an app that allows users to easily order and pick up their food without a wait or arrange for delivery directly to their seats.

The Product:

CineDash is a movie theater food ordering app that assists customers in getting their favorite movie snacks without waiting in line. The target audience for CineDash is the general public, with a focus on families, teenagers, and young adults.

My Role

Completed

2021

Defining the Process

I broke the project down into four key phases, each comprised of important steps. This approach helped plan out the project roadmap and determine key milestones and deliverable dates. With the tight timeline to MVP, working with an agile, sprint-based process allowed me to iterate on and validate potential solutions early and often.

Empathize & Analysis

I conducted interviews and created empathy maps to understand the needs of the users. Two primary user groups identified through the research were young adult movie lovers and families with children. These user groups confirmed initial assumptions about movie attendees, but research also revealed that time was not the only limiting favor for why users would benefit from the app. Families with small children found it difficult to stay in line with them and could not leave their children alone in the theater for the time required to get snacks. Along with the interviews, I conducted a competitive audit and identified the following opportunities:

Create a seamless and straightforward ordering process with competitive prices
Offer customization options that emphasize healthy ingredients and dietary alternatives
Integrate our app with voice assistive technology

Pain Points:

Time

Waiting in line at the theater made it difficult to find seats and be there for the start of the movie.

Safety

Parents attending the theater with young children cannot leave their kids alone to get food at the concessions.

Accessibility

Food ordering platforms are not equipped with assistive technologies.

Creation

I drafted each screen of the app on paper to make it easier to iterate on the digital wireframes and address the user's pain points.

The low-fidelity prototype, made in Figma, connected the primary user flow for ordering the food, so the prototype could be applied in a usability study with participants.

Usability Study:

I conducted two usability studies. Findings from the round one study helped guide the designs from the wireframes stage to the initial mockup. The round two study used a high-fidelity prototype and revealed what aspects of the mockup needed refining.

Round 1 Findings

Users were unsure how to navigate the ordering menu

Users wanted to have the nutritional information available for each food item

Round 2 Findings

Users were still unsure where to click on the ordering menu

Users got lost on the article page

Mockups:

A space was added for the nutritional information of each item.

Before usability study

After usability study

Instructions were added to the Menu to help users better navigate the page and drop shadows were added to encourage users to click on the button for each item.

Before usability study

After usability study

Accessibility Considerations:

Provided access to users who use screen readers by adding alt text to images.

Icons were used to aid navigation for users with language barriers.

Illustrations and photographs were used for each item to help all users understand the items they are selecting.

Production

The CineDash App reached its goal of making ordering snacks at the theater easier. One peer gave this feedback: “I wish more movie theaters had apps like CineDash, it’d be so fast to just grab your popcorn and go to your seat”

Takeaways:

As my first full UX design project, I learned that there are multiple stages of planning and iteration in UX design, all of equal importance. I also learned the value of continuous user feedback when creating a user-focused design. Designing for a diverse set of users and the next billion users is also something of significance in UX. I feel extremely accomplished seeing my work go from sketches on paper to a full mockup in Figma.