Enhancing the Experience of Renting Movies on BookMyShow
It started with a kick-off call on 15th July at 9:30 PM and then we were assigned the groups we had to work with. A group of 6 strangers including me worked together on a project with the same mindset to give their best and provide a functional product within 48 hours.
It was an Evaluative Project.
where we have to evaluate and improve the existing flow of an App/website/services.
The best teams always have interdisciplinary skills including user experience, Developer, visual designer, researcher business acumen…. Together, these ingredients make feasible, functional solutions. They result in products that address real user needs and have potential to become real businesses.
My role in the project
01. Understanding the Problem statement
02. Heuristic evaluation of the existing app flow
03. Secondary research and insights mapping
05. Primary research ( Took 1 interview ) and insights mapping
06. User journey mapping
07. Validating the assumptions and hypothesis.
08. Writing down HMW (how might we) questions and ideating based on those questions.
09. Wireframing( low and high fidelity )
10. Created a design system, UI elements, and components, created Final UI screens and the final prototype.
11. Re-iterating the UI Based on the insights from User testing.
Problem Statement
Evaluate the renting a movie flow of the Book my show app, which includes the Home page, search, filter, movie detail page, Rent and payment and redesign the experience while identifying opportunities to make usability better for the tier 2 and tier 3 cities which will lead to Increasing daily active users and conversion.
We started documenting and keeping an eye on the time by being conscious of how much time we had to give to the individual process.
For that, we made a plan of action.
PLAN OF ACTION
This is how our plan of action looks after many iterations👇
Understanding the business
- BookMyShow is India’s most extensive entertainment ticketing website, it is the only destination for movie and non-movie options like events, plays, and sports.
- BookMyShow follows a strategy of no refund after payment.
- It also has a source of revenue from non-ticketing means. Due to its large internet audience, it has the first-mover advantage. It promotes new articles and their offerings, therefore catching up a significant part of the revenue from promotional methods as well.
- BookMyShow now has its video streaming platform.
- BookMyShow Stream will be the first Indian service to follow a similar model to offer handpicked, curated library, customised to subscribers’ viewing patterns.
Understanding the user
Once we have understood the problem statement the very next thing we needed was our target users.
- Users from tier 2 and tier 3 cities where there are not many multiplexes that’s where an application like BMS comes in to cater to a substantially large population of the country.
- Users can be lazy people who don’t want to go to the theatre and rent a movie and watch it online from anywhere.
- Users can be aged people who can easily rent movies online and watch them from home.
- Users due to covid for safety purpose people would like to rent and watch from home.
- Users who don’t like to go to theatres will rent a movie and watch it from home.
Understanding the needs
We need to improvise the renting a movie flow of the app understanding where the user feels confused while searching for a particular movie or looking at the movie details or otherwise and leaves the items in the cart and wouldn’t go ahead with the payment.
What would be the outcome of solving this problem statement? Are there any goals you can see?
- Upon solving this problem we can increase the daily active users.
- A steady and improved flow for users to search for a movie and rent it.
- We can see the conversion rate of the business going up good experience will ensure customers are returning so it increases the daily active users.
Selecting the User Flow
Now, begins the real work once we have a basic understanding of the business, the users, and the needs of the business we can get started to achieve the desired business goals through bettering the user’s overall experience.
In our initial brainstorming, our team found that there are 3 possible ways in which a user can rent a movie. One is through the search bar, another way is through the Stream functionality that the app offers and the third is through the banners on the home screen.
01. Through the search bar
02. Through the stream functionality that the app offers
03. Through the banners on the home screen.
Due to time-constrain, our team will be focusing on just one flow and after a lot of discussions, we all agreed on going ahead with the search bar flow.
Self-Heuristic Evaluation
Now it’s evaluation time, and for the evaluation that you see below, we followed both the heuristic and non-heuristic approaches.
So, in the last section, we decided on the flow that we will be sticking to for the rest of this hackathon!
Below are the 10 heuristic principle that we adhered to:
- Visibility of system status
- Match between system and real world
- User control & Freedom
- Consistency and Standard
- Error Prevention
- Recognition rather than recall
- Flexibility and efficiency of use
- Aesthetic and minimalist design
- Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
- Help and documentation
Ideation
Now to the most fun part of the process. Since we completed the Self-Heuristic Evaluation in the last section and discovered several pain points and possible problems in the seamless interaction of the user and the application. We brainstormed a few ideas that are listed below.
01. External consistency is violated, where the users are seeing an Ad as soon as they open the App, which is also frustrating as the users expect to see the home screen first.
Remove the Ad on the initial screen and place it somewhere else.
02. Icons are confusing, also external consistency principle is violated
Keep icons that users are already familiar with.
03. There is no clear indication of where to go to rent movies. (Home screen)
The icon of the stream can be changed to something related to rentals, giving the name as rentals instead of a stream.
04. No option to create/add a movie to the watchlist/rent it later
Provide a wishlist/bookmark option for every movie.
05. A bit confusing as movies and streams have similar icons
Provide different icons for streams and movies.
06. Ability to watch it with friends/other users.
Add friends, chat with them and stream movies together.
07. Absence of benchmarks like IMDB Rating or Rotten Tomatoes so that users can check and make a quick decision
Adding benchmarks like IMDB Rating or Rotten Tomatoes so that users can check and make a quick decision.
08. It’s Cluttered ( Interface should not contain irrelevant )
Increase white space so it doesn’t look cluttered.
09. Recommended movie cards sizes are inconsistent
Can make it consistent with the other movie screen images.
10. No way to check if the coupons are applicable or not
If coupons are applicable, then a clear indication needs to be made, and invalid coupons should be disabled.
11. No flexibility in selecting movies based on Genre (Search screen)
Can have a section for movies with different categories along with a filter option.
12. The font size is small and not readable
Increase the font size to make it more readable, based on WCAG 2.0 For android: 16ps, 17pt body text based on Human Interface Guideline, 11 or tag and min you should use is 14.
13. It’s confusing to the user because of a lot of categories
Reduce or combine similar categories and display them in a proper manner, if the content is more, we can provide an “ add more “ button for each section.
14. The play button is not easily recognizable it’s violating the consistency principle
Change the color of the play button and keep it similar to the mental model of other apps.
15. Browse by movies and browse by price range should be on top and easily visible to the user
We can have a filter icon and add every category to it.
Hypothesis Statements
We had come up with 15+ ideas addressing the pain points in the previous steps. Based on these ideas and initial assumptions we derived the below-mentioned Hypothesis.
- “My hypothesis is that Remove the Ad on the initial screen and place it somewhere else because my assumption is that users’ External consistency is violated, where the users are seeing an Ad as soon as they open the App, which is also frustrating as the users expect to see the home screen first.”
- “My hypothesis is that Keep icons which users are already familiar with because my assumption is that users Icons are confusing, also external consistency principle is violated”
- “My hypothesis is that Icon of the stream can be changed to something related to money and rentals and Give the name as rentals instead of stream because my assumption is that there is no clear indication of where to go to rent movies on home screen”
- “My hypothesis is that add Wishlist because my assumption is that No freedom to create/add a movie to watchlist/rent it later
- “My hypothesis is that We can have separate icons for stream and movies because my assumption is that Bit confusing as movies and streams have similar icons ”
- “My hypothesis is that Add friends, chat with them, and stream movies together because my assumption is that Ability to watch it with friends/other users.”
- “My hypothesis is that benchmark like IMDB Rating or rotten tomatoes so that user can check and make a quick decision because my assumption is that Ability to watch it with friends/other users. “
- “My hypothesis is that Increase white space so it doesn’t look cluttered because my assumption is that one of the payment gateway screens is Cluttered. “
- “My hypothesis is that make all the screens consistent with the other movie screen images because my assumption is that Recommended movie cards sizes are inconsistent”
- “My hypothesis is that If coupons are applicable, then a clear indication needs to be made because my assumption is that No way to check if the coupons are applicable or not.”
- “My hypothesis is that We can have an indication for ‘favorites’, maintain history, and have a section for movies with different categories along with filter option because my assumption is that No flexibility of selecting movies based on Genre”
- “My hypothesis is that we can make the search better because my assumption is that Irrelevant search results”
- “My hypothesis is that Filter or sort should be easily available at the top to browse the movies because my assumption is that Filter is at the bottom of the screen, not easily recognizable and filter icon is hiding when we are scrolling. ”
- “My hypothesis is that Reduce or combine similar categories and display it in a proper manner because my assumption is that Its confusing to the user because of a lot of categories”
- “My hypothesis is that Change the color of the play button and keep it similar to the mental model of other apps because my assumption is that the Play button is not easily recognizable its violating the consistency principle.”
- “My hypothesis is that We can have a filter icon and add every category in it because my assumption is that Browse by movies and browses by price range should be on top and easily visible to the user.”
Secondary Research
For secondary research, we did desk research and competitor analysis to understand the behavior of users, get some statistical insights and understand the competitor’s strengths and weaknesses and enhance our app’s strategy.
Desk Research
India’s leading entertainment destination and the one-stop shop for every out-of-home entertainment need.
Factual / Statistical Insights
👉Online Movie Rental Service has a lower Carbon Footprint and Energy Consumption regarding real estate, packaging, transportation and power consumption compared to the Offline version Link to the research
👉During COVID, the application of film media is appropriate to use in listening learning because in its application film media can improve students’ listening skills Link to the research
👉when you are renting movies online, there are no late fees. The movies can be rented for a few days or hours and after the specified time, the movie will be deleted from your library. So there is no issue of being late. Article
👉 A recent report mentions that 73 per cent of customers have purchased through on .. Read more at:
https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/blog/digital-can-influence-a-majority-of-brick-and-mortar-sales-in-2022-how/91275703
👉Because we are targeting tier 2–3 cities in India. considering the fluctuated internet connectivity, providing a smooth payment solution:
UPI 123PAY is aimed to help feature phone users make digital payments quickly, it works when you are offline even on smartphones. Link
Behavioral Insights:
👉rural buyers look for value for money and do not buy anything for the sake of buying it and also stated in the study that when buying online, brand and price play an important role in their choice. Research article
👉The primary problem is that awareness of digital payment modes, among the masses is at a low in Tier III and IV cities. The other major problem is the lack of funds in Bank Accounts. The Direct Benefit Transfer scheme for the various subsidies — is a step in the right direction by the government, to create the funds for digital adoption. Article
👉But there are few restrictions when you rent a movie
- A time slot is given to you during which you have to watch the movie.
- Once, the period gets over you have to for the movie again if you wish to watch it again. Link
👉 The changing landscape of movies: THE impact of COVID-19 on movie theatres has accelerated two preexisting trends: More people are staying home to enjoy movies and other entertainment, and more studios and media distributors are developing their direct-to-consumer streaming services
Link
Competitor Analysis
Amazon prime
- Two ways we can access rented movies
- Via store
- Movie section (when we scroll at the bottom of the page, there is a ‘Rent’ label to identify the same)
- Categories are easily identifiable and on the find screen, movies are filtered out on the basis of categories
- The rented movie screen has a wishlist, a trailer option is there
- The description of the movie is crisp and is presented in a better format (different sections are maintained for ‘related’ and ‘more details)
- There is ‘Customers also watched’ in the related section — this helps customers to watch more related movies
- Has better representation for renting with ‘ more purchase option’
Google TV
- From the Shop menu, you can clearly understand which movies can be rented
- Better representation of ‘Ratings’ for the movies
- Have a watchlist list option for future reference
- The search option is better compared to BMS
- Information concerning the ‘rental expiry’ period
- Recommended related movies in the ‘If you liked the movie’ section
Primary Research
For primary research, I did the usability testing of the existing BookMyShow app to understand the problems a user is facing while using the app.
We interviewed 5 users from tier 2 and tier 3 cities, here are some insights.
User 1 — Nikhit
Age: 25
Lives in Chhattisgarh
Currently doing a Bootcamp on data analysis
Previously used the BookMyShow app for booking a movie for himself.
Insights:
- The user initially got confused when he saw that the rent amount was zero and thought it was something fake and then went and selected another movie.
- The user got confused when he did not find any option on the home page for renting a movie so then he went and searched for the movie in the search bar
- The user couldn’t easily find and add any coupons to his cart. It was very difficult for him to find the relevant coupons.
- In the payment, the only SBI card was given as an option to pay which frustrated the user as he won’t use the SBI card and he always uses the UPI option for the payment and that is not available here on the payment page.
- The user also said he doesn’t want to come again and order from this app as he can watch all these movies from amazon prime and just for renting a movie he said he is not interested in coming back to this app again.
User 2 — Akanksha
Age: 27
Lives in Patna
Finance Manager at Loons. She has used BookMyShow many times to book movies. The last time she booked a Thor movie.
Insights:
- She saw the banner in the beginning and clicked to rent a movie. The screen said rent or buy opened and she got confused about the activity and what she had to do? She then clicked on rent and moved forward. She read the short note regarding the time period for the rent “you can rent this movie for 30 days but will have 2 days to watch it once you start playback” and got annoyed with it. She also mentioned that it is even more expensive than Netflix.
- When she moved forward she had to enter her email id and phone number, and since has used book my show several times to book movie tickets her bank details were already entered and apple wallet was also activated. So while making the payment she had to verify her face id and it didn’t recognize her face at once, so she tried 2–3 times and it got verified.
- Users initially don’t understand that the stream option on the top is for renting movies and start to scroll to search for it.
- Users find renting a movie way more expensive than taking a Netflix subscription. Subscribing to an OTT platform gives them access to a lot of movies and can watch them as many times as they want, but renting a movie gives access to only one movie which they have to complete in two days puts the user under pressure and ends up giving them anxiety.
- In the early days’ people used to rent movies in the form of DVDs and then through cyber cafes, but now renting has become way more expensive.
User 3 — Meenakshi
Age: 26
Lives in Patna
Meenakshi is the CEO of a Patna-based organization ‘Loons’. She is 26 years old. Looms is a solution-providing organization.
Insights:
- She is a very busy person. She prefers watching OTT over going to the theater. She rents the movie only if it is not available elsewhere and if it is recommended by her close relatives only.
- As mentioned earlier, she goes to multiplex on Sunday only. When I asked which platform she loves to rent movies, she said that Youtube is a very user-friendly app for such things. When asked, she opened the BookMyShow app but got confused that no option for movie renting was available. After scrolling down she found titles with a rent button on them. She had to scroll down a lot. She did not find any rent options on the top screen. She only found ticket booking options on top and got confused by looking at other options.
- She said that walkthroughs need to be improved. With such a UI, she will never use this app for renting movies. She wants every option to be easily visible while renting any title.
User 4 — Sidharth
Age: 26
Profession: Recruiter
Place: Orissa
Insights:
- Use this app on a regular basis whenever he wants to book any movie ticket.
- And he emphasizes the fact that he uses this app just to book tickets and not to watch content.
- He achieved the target of the flow to find the rented movie and payment process in a matter of seconds,
- But when I asked, “ How often did you buy or rent any movie?” He said that“ Only once because I was not able to find that movie anywhere but it was very boring after some time and I left it in between”
- After asking What do you think it was missing here so if you buy/rent next time you will actually finish the movie? Reviews or Ratings were missing
- After leaving the movie in between He did not care to see if that movie was still available in his Rented movie list and or when it got deleted.
- He also found stream words confusing
- Why do I have to give a phone number (contact detail) for the purchase?
User 5 — Prakhar
Age: 19 years
Student
Patna
Insights :
- Have used the BMS application before.
- Easily navigated through various screens
- Observed him using the renting movie option via banner ad on the home screen
- The used long process of a searching particular movie
- (searched for more movies from the View all option in the ‘You might also like’ section below in the Rent or buy screen)
- Was aware of the ‘Audio’, ‘Subtitles’, rate now’ options on the screens
- The trailer icon is hardly visible on the rent movie screen, but the user was aware of how to find the check the trailers
- Generally uses the BMS app for booking movie tickets.
- Have used the BMS app once or twice for renting the moving
- Have used BMS over another app just because it offered cheaper rates compared to other apps and also the movie of his liking was available
- Was not aware that the ‘Renting movie’ option was available via ‘Stream Menu’, nor was aware if it could be done via the search option.
- Was not aware how the coupon got applied for a particular movie
- The in-Stream screen got confused about how to search for a particular genre or movie, then scrolled below just to find the options
Journey Mapping
We did journey mapping to know the user and their perspective. We utilized our desk research and all the learning from the interviews in journey mapping. This exercise helped us in removing our own perspectives and getting into the shoes of the user and knowing their pain points. How they feel, think, say, and do with the product.
Validation of Assumptions & Hypothesis
After successfully mapping the user insights and flow the next step is the validation of the assumption and hypothesis.
How Might We
We made some how might we queations based on our hypothesis statements so that we can make our ideation much better.
- How Might we make users gain trust to make the purchase?
- How might we help the user understand that a given movie is free stuff given by the app for watching?
- How might we help the user discover the already streaming relatably new movies?
- How might we make icons much better and easily recognizable?
- How might we make it clear to the user that there are no coupons available for the rentals?
- How might the user distinguish between rentable movies and theatre movies just by looking at their icons?
- How might we make it a better payment system that users are willing to complete their transactions?
Ideation
After a lot of brainstorming and discussion we decided to go on with the following ideas:
- Place those icons which users are familiar with
- A clear indication should be given for the applicable coupons.
- Add favorites option
- Making different categories in search results
- Adding IMDb ratings
Wireframing
Due to time constraints we were only able to design paper wireframes and after that we went on with the final UI of the app.
UI Design
Image 1 — Home page
- In the home page, we changed the icon for rental movies.
- We added a bookmark icon on the top so that users can simply click it and be directed to the bookmarked movies.
- We moved the search icon to the bottom following fitt’s law.
- We added the location so that the user knows which city he is looking for.
Image 2 & 3 — Search Page
- We made categories in the search results so that the user finds his way easily to the right movie
Image 4 — Movie Description Page
- We added the IMDb ratings
- W also added the bookmark icon here so that the users can bookmark the movies and rent them later as per their requirements.
Image 5 — Select quality
- We added different qualities in which users can watch the movies.
- In the existing app, it looked cluttered so we added some white space to it so users can view all of it easily.
Image 6 — Payment Page
- The payments page again was cluttered and users were unable to find anything easily, so we divided it into sections.
Image 7 — Coupons
- We changed the layout of coupons
- The coupons which were not applicable were turned to grey.
Image 8 — Coupon Details
- In the existing app, the coupon details were written in a non- readable font, we changed the font so users can read it clearly.
Image 9 — Other Payment Methods
- We gave a different layout than the existing app, which matched with our payment screen.
Revamped Experience Usability Testing
Finally! the time has come to put the design out in front of the users and run usability testing.
As this whole design process is a never-ending iterative procedure.
User 1 — Prakhar:
Age: 19 years
Student
Patna
Overall initial observation of the user
The user has used BMS thrice earlier for movie renting so he is well versed in the app. When he opens the app, he usually clicks on the top stream button. He found the Rent button and clicked on it but it did not work. He said that he usually scrolls down on the homepage and looks for Buy and Rent titles. When he clicks on any But and Rent titles, it takes him to the rent page.
Insights from probing questions
He used the prototype and said that the search results are better than earlier. He finds many titles on the Rent page. He said that the prototype is good. The top search would have been also good.
User 2 — Akanksha
Age: 27
Lives in Patna
Finance Manager at Loons. She has used BookMyShow many times to book movies. The last time she booked a Thor movie.
Overall initial observation of the user:
At first, she didn’t understand where to start since not all the things we were working on were in the app. So I explained to her what she has to do and we began. She noticed every single thing we made changes in. She liked that she can choose the quality of the video as it was not available in the original app. She applied the coupon available and as she saw that the price has reduced she said it was no more expensive and I can buy it now. She went through the Payment screens and liked the way we made changes and how easy we made it to use.
Insights from probing questions:
She found the new design of the app a lot and felt it had become very easy to use than the original app.
She was happy to see that rental movies also have vouchers.
She told that in the original app you can not simply see everything at once without focusing, but in the redesigned version she was able to notice all the available features at once because it was so nicely designed.
User 3 — Sidharth
Age: 26
Profession: Recruiter
Place: Orissa
Overall initial observation of the user:
He rents movies very rarely. He prefers OTT for watching titles. He said that he looked for the title directly on Google and search results gave him the BookMyShow renting links. So he does not need to search on BookMyShow.
Insights from probing questions:
Said the top search button is better than the prototype. In the prototype, the search button is on the bottom. He has to scroll down to find the search button. Could not distinguish much between the prototype and the actual app. Said that he will look for Buy and Rent titles directly on the homepage and if he can click on such titles which can take him to the Rent page.
The final iterations that we made after the usability testing were:
Putting back the search icon to where it was earlier, the reason being users are used to using the search button on the top, since so many apps have their search buttons on the top.
Iterations
Key Learnings from the Project:
Learning:
This was a great experience for us, not only did we get a better understanding of how people use our design and it’s the best exercise to learn about “ never fall in love with your design “ and that there is always room for improvement.
- People prefer the search icon at the top right even if it’s hard to reach there they want it there due to habit formation/muscle memory.
- Fitts law played important role in the usability test — Travel distance from the bottom icon to the search bar at the top.
- keeping the search bar at the top and its functionality of it at the top itself saves time.
- Apart from the process and teaching the biggest takeaway for me from this project would be how to work efficiently under pressure and time constraints.
- Another thing this project thought about was how to effectively collaborate with different designers.
That’s a wrap. Thank you for going through this Case Study!
Team Creative Visionaries (CV) signing off!