REEL TALK
Reel Talk is a movie social platform where users connect through authentic reviews, ratings, and personalized recommendations to explore films and engage with cinephile communities.
My Role
Product Designer
UI Designer
UX Researcher
Platform
Mobile App
Website
Tools Used
Figma
Miro
Notion
Timeline
Dec 2023- present
XFN
PM
Frontend Developers
Backend Developers
PROBLEM
User Problem
Movie discussions are scattered across platforms, making it hard for users to rate films, share reviews with communities, and message friends smoothly, leading to reduced engagement and a fragmented experience for cinephiles.
Challenges
How might we create a platform where users can seamlessly discuss movies, share ratings and reviews, create lists, connect with communities and chat with connections?
Business Problem
Reel Talk's first launch need to overcome the cold start problem by acquiring users while simultaneously building an active community to drive early engagement.
Objective
Provide a single platform that seamlessly integrates movie ratings and social interaction, guiding users to discover, create, post, and engage effortlessly with the movie community.
Impact
Higher User Satisfaction:
Achieved a 93% satisfaction rate based on feedback from 25 user testings, validating the effectiveness of the minimum viable product.
Higher Feature Adoption:
Design iterations boosted feature discovery from 30% to 70% with 25 users engaging with at least 5 out of 7 MVP features.
Design Outcome
I designed the end-to-end user journey across mobile and desktop, creating 14+ features focused on personalization and engagement while ensuring a seamless cross-platform UX. Key features include community building and review posting. The product continues to evolve through iterations ahead of its Q2 launch on the Apple and Google Play Store.
Onboarding
Collect user preferences
Discovering
Search and explore content
Creating
Build communities and lists
Posting
Post reviews and thoughts
Socializing
Chat with movie lovers.
Challenges
My Challenges in This Product
Wearing Multiple Hats: Managed user research, conducted interviews, synthesized insights, and balanced research with design tasks in a fast-paced start-up environment.
Building Across Platforms: Designed responsive mobile web and desktop websites simultaneously to ensure consistency under tight deadlines.
Balancing Scope and Personalization: Delivered MVP features that attracted users, drove personalization, and improved engagement while staying within resource constraints.
Streamlining Complex Features: Simplified community creation, sharing, and messaging to avoid overwhelming users and boost retention.
Design Process
RESEARCH
Interviews & Preference Survey
Competitive Analysis
User Profile
IDEATION
Research Findings
Business Goals
Critical User Journey
DESIGN & ITERATION
Wireframing
Usability Testing
Iteration & Prototype
TAKE-AWAY
Impact
Reflection
Next Steps
RESEARCH
Research Goal
The Challenge
What challenges do users face when engaging in movie discussions and sharing reviews with others?
Context
Reel Talk brings together the functionality of IMDb and Facebook groups, offering cinephiles a platform to share authentic reviews and connected movie communities. We aim to provide a seamless and efficient experience for users to quickly discover content and easily connect with movie communities.
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Method 1: Competitive Analysis
Reel Talk’s Unique Value Proposition
Reel Talk combines movie ratings, reviews, and a community-driven approach, creating targeted spaces for users to engage in personalized movie discussions and build authentic communities.
Marketing Fit and Strategy
Reel Talk fills a gap in the U.S. by combining authentic reviews with community building.
Post-launch, we’ll refine the platform and expand by engaging niche film communities and cinephile cultures across the U.S.
Movie Platforms
Social Platforms
Movie Social Platforms
Douban (豆瓣)
U.S. Market
(lacks a centralized platform for movie ratings, reviews, and community engagement)
Movie rating and view platforms (Rotten
Tomatoes, IMDb, and Letterboxd) offer movie ratings and reviews but lack strong community-building features.
Social platforms (Facebook, Reddit, and Quora) have movie discussion groups, they lack structured rating and review systems, making it difficult to find authentic reviews and track personalized recommendations.
⭐ International Market
(has centralized platform)
Douban (豆瓣) is Chinese movie review, rating, and discussion platform, allows users to create lists, join discussion groups, follow friends, and send private messages. Had over 300 million monthly active users in 2024 (Liu, J. 2024). But The app is more culturally tailored to China.
Movie ratings
Discussion
groups
Write and post
discussions
Follow friends
and send private
messages
Method 2: User Interview
12 users (6 cinephiles)
91% find switching between platforms time-consuming and frustrating.
67% feel existing platforms lack social features.
58% are interested in a community-based movie platform.
33% say movie list creation isn’t personalized enough.
“I discuss movies on Reddit and Letterboxd but want direct messaging with friends.”
“I love movie discussions and want ratings and reviews in one app.”
“I want to share my watchlist but also chat with friends about it.”
"I check TikTok for trending movies but rely on IMDb for ratings.”
IDEATION
Research Findings
I identified three key user needs that impact engagement and satisfaction. Below are the main challenges and their proposed solutions to create a product users truly want.
😃 What Users Want
🎬 A dedicated space for cinephiles to connect, discuss films, and engage in meaningful conversations.
⭐ A seamless way to rate, review, and organize movies with authentic insights from a trusted community.
🗣️ A social experience that goes beyond reviews, offering discussions, groups, and private messaging.
💡How Reel Talk Meets Users' Needs
🎥 Creates an interactive and immersive experience beyond passive movie rating.
📱Provide a product for users to engage in discussions effortlessly while organizing and exploring films efficiently.
💬 Enhances engagement with discussion groups, lists, and messaging features.
Goals
Design Goal
Create a unified platform that seamlessly integrates movie ratings, reviews, and social interactions, enabling users to engage with communities and friends effortlessly while enhancing the overall discussion experience.
Business Goal
Successfully acquire initial users and foster an active community to drive early engagement, ensuring a strong foundation for growth and long-term user retention.
Critical User Journey
Based on key findings and design goals, I developed a low-fidelity critical user journey to map out key interactions and ensure a seamless experience that meets user needs.
Concept Ideas
Based on the critical user journey, we defined 4 core product pillars—Discovery, Creation, Posting, and Socializing—to address user pain points and drive engagement.
01 Discovering
🔍
search contents efficiently
Search contents
02 Creating
🖌️
build movie communities and movies lists seamlessly
Create movies lists
Create discussion groups
03 Posting
💭
rate scores, write reviews, and post discussion quickly
Rate scores and write reviews
Post discussions
04 Socializing
💬
send messages smoothly
Send private messages
DESIGN
I led the end-to-end design of 3 key features—Creation, Posting (rating and reviews), and Socializing—from
0 to 1 to meet user needs. I also redesigned the Posting (discussion posts) and Discovery flow to address user pain points and improve usability and engagement. This was done in close collaboration with engineers, designers, and the product manager.
Discovering
REDESIGN
🔍
Feature 1
Search contents
Creating
0-1
🖌️
Feature 2
Create movies lists
Creating
0-1
🖌️
Feature 3
Create groups
Posting
0-1
💭
Feature 4
Post scores & reviews
Posting
REDESIGN
💭
Feature 5
Post discussion
Socializing
0-1
💬
Feature 6
Send messages
ℹ️
As the Product Designer responsible for both mobile and desktop website experiences, with a mobile-first approach, I will focus primarily on designing the mobile website to address user pain points and enhance engagement to achieve business goals.
0-1 Products
To create a seamless experience for users to form groups and engage through authentic reviews.
coming soon
Creating
Create movies lists and groups
Posting
Post scores & reviews
Socializing
Send private messages
Posting
Post discussion
Discovering
Search contents
Redesign Products
Redesign products to resolve user pain points and boost feature adoption and engagement.
coming soon
ADD ONBOARDING TO MVP
Although the MVP meets user needs and fills a market gap, beta testing revealed
low engagement. User research identified two key issues:
1. Users must explore the product independently;
2. Users struggle to find content that matches their interests.
To address this, we added an onboarding experience to the MVP that not only collects first-time users' preferences to recommend content aligned with their interests but also guides them through Reel Talk, enhancing engagement.
Onboarding
0-1
📱
Feature 7
Quickly onboard first-time users
Onboarding
Create movies lists and groups
REFLECTION
Next steps
After launch, we will collect user data and iterate on the design to enhance engagement through A/B testing and qualitative research. By ensuring a seamless UX across mobile and desktop, we aim to convert first-time users into power users.
What I learned
Prioritization: Meeting all user requirements at once is unrealistic. To keep the project on track, prioritization is essential.
Product Strategy: The foundation for finding market fit, identifying gaps, and aligning with user needs to drive future growth.
Design: Balancing simplicity with engagement in onboarding and interactions is key. Prioritizing user preferences without overwhelming them ensures an intuitive, engaging experience from the start.
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