Google UX Design Professional Certificate: second exercise
Project overview:

The Bigger Half Cinema is a small studio cinema located in Sydney, Australia. The repertoire of the cinema consists mainly of independent films, the work of young artists, as well as great cinema masterpieces, which are no longer displayed by large multiplexes.
A typical cinema visitor is a person living in a big city, someone aged 25-45, who participates in the city's cultural life and likes to spend Friday evenings "out in the city" with a group of close friends.
The cinema needs to create a seat reservation system that will allow cinema guests to book tickets without visiting the box office. The system should be responsive and and ready to use in both the desktop and mobile versions.
Project details:
Duration:
October - November 2021
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My role:
UX researcher, UX designer, UI designer, brand designer
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Responsibilites:
User research, wireframing (paper + digital), prototyping (hifi + lofi), iterating on design
The problem:
Cinema visitors have to visit the ticket office to reserve a seat, which is time-consuming and discourages cinema visits.
The booking processes too often take too long, force the user to create an account, or use intrusive advertisements.
The goal:
The goal is to create a responsive seat booking system that will allow users to buy tickets without visiting the cinema box office. The system should be as simple as possible and should not require the user to set up an account on the cinema's website.
Process:
1. Empathise: research, pain points, personas, empathy maps
2. Define: problem statement
3. Ideate: goal statement
4. Prototype: sitemap, wireframes || hifi prototype (refined design)
5. Test: usability tests
1. Empathise
Research:

I interviewed the participants and created empathy maps to learn about the users' needs. The group of participants included people aged 22 - 55 who live in big cities and visit cinema at least once a year.
I noticed that most of the participants don't remember having any problems when booking seats or tickets online. This process is usually so well known and developed down to the smallest detail that it is difficult to make mistakes at the user flow design stage.
However, some participants reported that they were frustrated when they had to create an account just to buy tickets once. They are also annoyed by ads that distract them from the main flow and slow the booking process. Participants expected a seat reservation system to be as simple as possible and fast to navigate.
Pain points:

Based on the research, three main pain points were created.
Persona:

The next step was to create a persona. The user group is represented by Eva, a 28-year-old medical laboratory scientist, a young person who often spends time with her friends - sometimes they visit their favorite cinema without planning.
Empathy Map

An empathy map based on the persona
2. define
Problem statement:
Eve is a busy young professional who needs an easy system for booking tickets and seats in the cinema because she often books tickets spontaneously and has no time to waste in the process.
3. ideate
Goal statement:

Create a seat reservation system that will allow users to easily purchase cinema tickets. The system should allow the users to select a movie, book a seat and purchase a ticket without creating an account. The website must be responsive and accessible from any device, so that users can buy tickets regardless of where they decide to visit the cinema.
The effectiveness will be measured by the number of tickets purchased using the website.
4. Prototype
Sitemap:

As I was designing the seats reservation flow for the cinema, each stage of this process was the result of the previous stage. Therefore, a part of the site map was built in the sequential structure.
The site map allowed me to design solutions that will make it easier for users to book seats.
Wireframes:

The next step was to create wireframes.
Users would like to book tickets also when they do not have access to desktop computers - it was necessary to create both: desktop and mobile version of the website.
The mobile version consists of the same elements as the desktop version, but also introduces additional elements, such as a hamburger menu or carousels.
wireframes: desktop
wireframes: mobile
5. test
Usability studies:

Unmoderated usability studies have been conducted. 5 participants took part in the tests.
Each session lasted from 10 to 15 minutes.
The participants were asked to perform the following tasks:
1. Buy a movie ticket, select a seat and pay online;
2. Find information about the movie you are interested in
Based on usability studies, I have selected three conclusions:
Improvements:
Based on the results of usability tests, I have introduced the following improvements.
High Fidelity Prototype
high-fidelity prototype: desktop
high-fidelity prototype: mobile
Screens preview:
Design elements:
Final thoughts and conclusion:

Cinema seat reservation systems are one of the best designed user flows on the internet - most cinemas offer online ticket booking. Even so, improvements to this process can still be found.
During the last usability studies I conducted for this project, 80% of users (4/5 people) had no problems with booking a cinema seat using the website.
My personal thoughts on this project:
Users are not designers. Designers are not users. Our visions, ideas and, above all, needs differ significantly. In-depth research allows for creating the design that users need.
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