Popcorn | XiangLiUX

Group Project (Sep. 2021 - Dec. 2021)

Popcorn Helps You
Explore New Media and
Connect with Others

Overview

Popcorn is a social media platform that revolves around TV shows and movies. It is a place where users can see their friends’ recommendations, leave comments about something they’ve watched, recommend media to others, and chat with friends. Popcorn’s goal is to make watching TV shows or movies an enjoyable and social experience, which will hopefully bring friends and family closer together without the need to be physically present.

The idea for Popcorn grew from our group’s common frustration for terrible AI recommendations and the hours we wasted scrolling through recommendations. We thought that there must be a solution to fix the arduous process of finding a movie or TV show to watch. So we set out to explore the idea and find answers.

Timeline & My Contributions

Need-finding

Interview
Empathy Map & POVs
How Might We...

Prototype Building & Usability Test

Ideation
Paper Prototype
Usability Testing
Lo-Fi Prototype
Heuristic Evaluation

Visual Design

Hi-Fi Prototype
Concept Video

Need-finding

The project focuses on the consumption of media, specifically music, TV shows, and movies. We aim to explore the connection between sharing and media, including the interactions that might develop from consuming media.

1. Interview

5 potential users from various demographics were interviewed to find the insights of media consumption experience. Each interview was noted down and transcribed. I interviewed 2 interviewees and took notes for 1 interview.

Clarence

Undergraduate

Band member

Kat

Freshman

Anime fan

Entrepreneur

Pro. in media

Liz

Mother of 3

Leisure watcher

Owen

Graduate

Thoughts sharer

2. Empathy Map & Point of Views (POVs)

The interview results were collated and make analyzed by Empathy Map and Point Of Views (POVs) methods. This phase was completed by the whole group together.

Although the interviewees' perspectives might be quite different on the surface level, what they suggest is that consuming media can be a solitary activity, but there is also a major community aspect that exists. Sometimes the community can be inaccessible whether because of physical distance or differing schedules. Even simply, afraid of bothering their friends.

3. How Might We... (HMW)

We phrased 30 HMW sentences and picked the Top 3, which were the most representative and promising ones. Based on these HMWs, we brainstormed possible solutions. This phase was also completed by the whole group together.

Prototype Building & Usability Test

The final solution integrated multiple ideas from the last stage, which is a platform to connect with friends over media through clips, timestamped comments, friend recommendations lists, and ratings. The final design evolved from rough sketches, paper prototypes, low-fidelity prototype and eventually reached high-fidelity level.

4. Ideation

My responsibility was to sketch out the ideas generated by all the group members.

1. Standalone application

2. Kiosks in theaters

3. Website (Picked)

4. Post real-time comments during watching

5. Paper Prototype

I refined the sketches to obtain the paper prototype, which in next step would be used for usability testing.

6. Usability Testing

My role during this phase was to conduct the usability testing as a facilitator. And 3 major issues were found in the test:

Users didn’t visit profile pages.
Users were confused about some headers such as“trending now”.
Interactivity with posts including like, comment, and share buttons were missing.

7. Lo-Fi Prototype

From sketches to wireframes we made several improvements, including rephrasing the title "Trending now" to "Popular Among Friends" in order to avoid ambiguity; allowing users to interact with their friends by comments, forward, and like; allowing users to set up their profile description and manage friends. I was the main responsible person for the low-fidelity prototypes. My role is to revise the prototype based on feedback from usability testing and comments from team members.

8. Heuristic Evaluation

Our peers (from other project groups) helped us spot numerous heuristic violations with our lo-fi prototype, the most serious ones are:

Lack of user control and freedom: no cancel button to exit editing.
The flow of creating posts is inefficient and the add button is confusing.
The order of "like", "forward", and "comment" does not follow the conventional rules.

We corrected these violations in Hi-Fi prototype.