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Aim

Make the film choosing process easier and more fun by creating a game-like system with an algorithm that would filter through thousands of films and present the most accurate suggestion based on the game results.

Project

A concept for an app that would offer an alternative film choosing solution.

UX/UI

ORIGINS

I all began by investigating a problem:

Due to the number of options presented on a daily basis, the amount of time and energy wasted filtering through them overweights the good side of having nearly endless options rather than just having a few.

The downside of having too many options is that it is too overwhelming and not desirable.

Instead of helping to save time and make the process easier, it gives the opposite effect.

It’s counterintuitive, but people don’t really want unlimited choices because “too much of everything” has turned to make a choice into a painful undertaking. Just why is it that making choices can be so paralyzing?
Freud had a hypothesis called ego depletion that claimed our ego is innately linked to mental activities involving the transfer of energy.

"How A Surplus Of Choice Weakens Brands"

Those who had already made a number of choices on any given day—compared to those who had not had to deal with as many choices that day—had far less willpower and self-control. The abundance of choices and decision making had moved the test group along what psychologists call the Rubicon model of action phases to a point of weakness and apathy.

"How A Surplus Of Choice Weakens Brands"

Technology has increased not just the amount of advertising we’re exposed to but also the sheer volume of every kind of choice hammering us. Consider the absolutely mind-numbing volume of choices we have if we want to sit down and watch something on demand. Forget what to watch—first you have to decide whether to open Hulu, Netflix, DirecTV, Sling TV, Amazon, Roku, PlayStation . . .

"How A Surplus Of Choice Weakens Brands"

I spend too much time trying to choose what to watch. And in the end, I don't feel like watching anything or end up watching something random and not so fulfilling, so I could just stop choosing.

Survey

Yes!!! I relate to this so much.

It's so annoying sometimes, the choosing is so fatiguing, making the mood for movie night fade.

Interview

BRIEF

PROBLEM

So many options for not only what to watch, but what streaming service to use as well. Too many choices often lead to not choosing anything at all, because it seems easier to either watch something randomly stumbled across or not to watch anything at all.

SOLUTION

Create a system that would filter films and pick one final option.

CONCEPT

Create a game system from a set of questions that would help the algorithm filter through thousands of options of films and present the most accurate result based on the input answers.

Name:

Evelyn

Age:

27 years old

Interests:

Going to cultural events, reading, hiking, cooking.

Occupation:

Event curator

Region:

South West England

PERSONA PROFILE:
formed from research and interviews

INSIGHTS

Create a system that would filter films and pick one final option.

It usually consists of:

Genre
Release year
Duration
Average rating
Language

Using the same system often means very similar results: narrowing down the list but still leaving plenty of options to choose from.

Market research: movie choosing websites.

APP:

Taste- Movies & TV

First, the app gives a quiz to calculate the taste. And based on the answers, it personalises ratings and reviews to make a selection of the most suitable films.

It is kind of a ”film tinder”, where people have to swipe left or right. The app uses several collaborative filtering algorithms to suggest what to watch.

The match % for each movie and show measures how much a person would enjoy a movie.

INSIGHTS:

Despite giving even more options on how to choose films this app still doesn’t provide the final suggestion, and the end choice must be made by a person.

APP:

Popflake

The app suggests limited themes/topics, which helps to narrow down the choices.

There is also a search option, which gives a limited amount of words to describe a movie. Later based on those words top selection of films is presented.

INSIGHTS:

Even though the idea of the app is definitely more efficient than most of the others, the final choice still has to be made by users themselves.

APP:

What to watch: Movies

Search from various streaming services included.

A set of questions is presented with limited answers (to help make the choosing process easier).

INSIGHTS:

Based on the answers the list of films is presented. And still, the final choice must be made by a person.

APP icons

These 4 symbols of films/videos are the most commonly used shapes for the designs of app icons that are related to films/videos.

Also, red is quite a common colour to use for designs associated with films/videos.

INSIGHTS:

The symbols in all of these apps icons clearly indicate an instant connection with films, but for FILTER icon design I want to step away from the commonly used symbols and create something different, to step away from both the usually used symbols in design and provided searching systems.

MARKET RESEARCH:

Questions that the algorithm would be based on.

If the film was…

a colour, what colour it would be?
weather, what weather it would be?
a game, what game it would be?
a texture, what texture it would be?
an animal, what animal it would be?
a sound, what sound it would be?
an emotion, what emotion it would be?
an element, what element it would be?

To test how the algorithm would be formed a conducted a survey on 3 films and asked people who've seen them to answer these questions. I wrote down the data that I've gathered from the answers and surprisingly found quite a few matches between the answers of different people which proved that with enough data algorithm could quite accurately interpret the answers of the game and then based on that suggest a film.

A few examples and matches.

THE MAKING OF:
filtering system

KEY WORDS:

Focus points for brand language and visual identity.

Efficient

FUNCTIONS &
GOALS

Provide an alternative searching system for finding what film to watch.
Be minimalistic as a contrast to the surplus of choices.
Help to save time and energy.
Expand movie tastes by suggesting films that users might not normally pick themselves.

Minimal

Fun

Helpful

I identified the main points of user flow that would meet the needs, desires and main goals of a user. I presented the flow in a diagram to show what the user journey would look like from discovering the app to navigating through it and reaching the end result.

USER FLOW

Visual inspiration came from the name and the concept “FILTER”; the app is supposed to work as a filter to sift through films and select one final suggestion. A visual of a usual filter as a sieve of mesh inspired the pattern of the logo.