01 · THE PROBLEM
My real friends' movie picks were getting lost.
02 · WHAT I DID
Ran a survey, interviewed 5 movie lovers, then prototyped and tested.
03 · THE RESULT
Testers moved through the core flow without friction.
01 · Problem
My friends’ movie picks were getting buried
I use Letterboxd, a social app for logging and reviewing movies, almost daily. But my actual friends get lost among everyone I follow, and to see what one friend watched, I have to open their profile. To learn whether others felt the same, I surveyed movie lovers and interviewed 5 participants in person.
86% find it hard to choose what to watch next.
85% never post reviews or comments.
58% want to talk about movies more online.
Interviews showed that people trust friends' taste over strangers' ratings, and that friends' recommendations get lost.
I grouped the findings in an affinity map and built two personas. Their scenarios shaped the main flow: hearing about a movie and saving it before it's forgotten.
The challenge: help people find movies through friends they trust, without asking them to post anything.
02 · DESIGN Decisions
Three choices that put friends’ movie taste first
Lead with the movie, not the person
I first pictured an Instagram-style feed, organized around each friend and what they posted. But in conversations, people didn't ask "What has Sam been watching?" They asked, "Hey, have you seen this movie?" The movie came first. So I built a movie-first feed: each card is a movie, with "Watched by 3 of your friends" and their star ratings underneath.
Why: people open the app to decide what to watch. Friends are the filter, not the destination. A movie card answers "should I watch this?" at a glance, without opening anyone's profile.
Make it social without anyone writing reviews
With 85% of people never posting, a feed built on reviews would stay empty. So FilmClub runs on what people already do: watching and rating. A one-tap star rating is enough to show up in friends' feeds. Written reviews stay optional.
Trade-off: less rich content than a review site, in exchange for a feed that fills up from ordinary behavior.
Let friends talk about movies privately, not in comments
People want to talk about movies (58%), just not in public. One interviewee said they never comment online but talk about movies with strangers in person all the time. I see it myself: friends text me about my Letterboxd reviews instead of commenting. So I left out public comment threads and added private messaging.
Trade-off: no public discussion for others to browse, in exchange for a format people actually use.
Every decision traces back to research
Competitive analysis → Survey → 5 interviews → Affinity map and personas → Ideation → Paper sketches → Low-fi prototype → Usability test → Hi-fi in Figma → Retest
03 · TESTING
Test participants couldn’t find the messages, so I moved them
I tested a clickable low-fidelity prototype with 5 people, asking them to save a movie, view a movie and message a friend. Most tasks went smoothly. Messaging was the exception.
Messaging failed where I first put it. I had placed it in the bottom navigation as a fifth tab. Testers didn't find it quickly. They looked in the top right, where most messaging apps put it.
What I changed: I cut the bottom bar to four tabs (Home, Search, Lists, Profile) and moved messaging to a chat icon in the top right. I retested informally with coworkers, and they found it right away.
Smaller changes from testing:
Dark mode. 2 of 5 testers asked for it, and posters stand out on dark backgrounds.
Two ways to delete. Testers reached for swipe-to-delete, as in Mail, so I kept it and added a visible Edit button.
Smaller changes from testing:
Dark mode. 2 of 5 testers asked for it, and posters stand out on dark backgrounds.
Two ways to delete. Testers reached for swipe-to-delete, as in Mail, so I kept it and added a visible Edit button.
04 · Final Design
The final design: friends’ ratings on every movie
Home: friends' activity on every movie card.
Search: save a recommendation while it's fresh.
Movie detail: friends' ratings beside the overall score, details in tabs.
Lists: one place for recommendations, not a scrap of paper.
Try the prototype: save a movie from the feed, search "Nine Days" (press return), open it, then check Lists. Messaging is a concept and isn't clickable.
05 · Reflection
Constraints, outcome and reflection
Constraints: I was still learning Figma and wanted to prove the core concept quickly. So I prioritized the main flows (discover, save, find later) over designing every screen. Some features, like writing a review, stayed at the concept stage.
Outcome: In the final high-fidelity test, people moved through the main flow without friction.
What I'd do differently:
Test the core idea. I'd test this movie-first feed against a friend-first version to see which helps people decide what to watch faster.
Set success measures up front, like time to save a recommendation, so I could report results, not just impressions.
Finish the experience. I'd design the missing screens, like writing a review and messaging, and refine buttons, touch targets and Lists. A revisit is in progress.
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