Fandango
As a product design intern for the summer of 2019, I worked on projects, aiming to solve issues that arose from Fandango’s advance ticket buying experience during the release of Avengers: Endgame in April 2019. It was exciting to be on this team as I had the opportunity to get tons of live data since watching movies is an extremely popular past time in the summer.
One of the issues that arose from the advance ticket buying experience was a spike in number of refunds. My goal as the product design intern was to tackle this issue before the next blockbuster, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, was released. Collaborating with the researcher, product manager and senior lead designer, I developed an experience for users on the Fandango mobile app to help narrow down their needs and wants via an amenities filter on the movie showtimes page (discovery page).
Since Avengers Endgame broke Fandango ticket sales records, the Product and PX (Product and UX design) teams wanted to understand what the advance ticket buying experience was like for users.
Fandango encountered one main issue: high volumes of refunds
1. Incorrect selection of AM instead of PM for showtimes because theaters were showing movies around the clock
2. Wrong or accidental purchases due to unwanted amenities
1. Prevent people from buying tickets for the wrong format, seating or time
2. Reduce number of refunds/exchanges and customers contacting support
Moviegoers chose and purchased tickets with incorrect amenities: unwanted format (3D vs. standard), unwanted video translation (dubbing/subtitles vs. closed caption), or wrong showtime (AM vs. PM).
Prevent users from returning tickets and increase purchasing funnel completion rate
Find movies easily with preferred amenities and discover times that work best for them
Flow is confusing and not intuitive
1. Users struggle with choice when there’s a long list of showtimes that feature all types of amenities
2. Users shouldn’t go in circles when making decisions but rather easily find the showtime that fits their needs
Assumption: By narrowing down search results, moviegoers will easily find relevant showtimes that they want, eliminating possible errors when they are purchasing a ticket.
Journey Map on one of Fandango's core personas
To identify where in the user experience did people struggle with selecting desired amenities for a movie
Data from a customer survey on the importance of amenities with a sample of 955 users
* Exact numbers not included for confidentiality
A more focused experience to accommodate all the amenities available
A slide experience to highlight important amenities on the discovery page for easy access
A way to help users understand more information about certain amenities
Moderated, in-person user testing with 10 participants evaluating two versions
8/10 participants preferred Filter V1 because it provided the most satisfaction, efficiency and ease.
Test test test!
Getting feedback is very critical. This is not only obtained by holding design reviews with your team but also testing among your users. It’s crazy valuable to make a good design (or a good risk) and know why you made it because backing up your design decisions with data and research is a crucial way of knowing whether you are solving for the right problem.
Be curious and open
Everyone has their own story, background and experience that you can gain valuable lessons from. I made time to have coffee chats with everyone on my team within the first few weeks. I also sat down with people in other departments: product taught me to strike a balance between business goals and user needs while research helped me format a test plan and conduct moderated interviews.
Be flexible and adaptable to changes
I was initially tasked to revamp the help center; however, after a few weeks, there were some complications and it was pushed to the backlog. I realized the importance of adjusting to sudden changes – although I expected to finish this project through, I was ultimately able to work on not just one but seven different projects! Keeping an open mind can help you embrace change alongside constant technological advancements as well as shifts in user needs and priorities.
