Transcend
A digital web application that helps independent Cineworks filmmakers connect, collaborate, and create meaningful films together.
Deliverables
See our final presentation deck here
Role
User Research, Art Direction, UX/UI Design, Copywriting, Usability Testing
Value Proposition
Creating a meaningful and relevant design concept that is created by input from Cineworks members for the larger membership base to craft their unique film stories
Team
Aleeze Asif, Curtis Ho, Eloisa Kompier
Timeline
September 2018 - December 2018 (4 months)
Tools
Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects
Problem Context
This client-focused project was for an Interaction Design Methods course where we applied different user research methodologies every week with our organization, synthesized that research into a design focus and proposed a final concept that would add the most value for the organization based on the cumulative findings. Our team partnered with Cineworks, a non-profit filmmaking society that supports independent Vancouver filmmakers by providing film production services and conducts film exhibitions to showcase their members’ films to the wider Vancouver community.
Initial Problem Framing
How can we use design to better assist and provide value to Cineworks’ goals as a member-based organization?
This question is quite vague and difficult to tackle from the beginning. What we needed first was to understand Cineworks as an organization in terms of their vision and their processes.
What contributes to Cineworks’ competitive advantage is that we have access to old-school tools and part of our member base specializes in creating independent films that do not have large budgets with celluloid film and hand-made film processing, an old technique of unique filmmaking.
-Jem, Director of Programming, Cineworks
Short-Term Goals
From conducting stakeholder interviews with the Director and Cineworks’ CEO, we discovered that Cineworks desires to improve the inter-collaboration among its member base when they are working on film-related projects and to help improve the member presence within their locations.
Long-Term Goals
As a non-profit filmmaking organization, Cineworks wants to re-establish itself as a production and education hub within Vancouver.
Problem Reframe
How might we use design to improve the filmmaking experience for Cineworks’ members and establish Cineworks as a go-to production and education hub within Vancouver?
To answer this, our team needed to determine whether or not we should leverage design to intervene at the production or exhibition subareas of Cineworks, two entirely different parts of Cineworks that could lead to two very different design solutions. This meant that our weekly ethnographic research should lead us to one of these intervention areas.
Process
This led to three core insights.
1. Inefficiency in Communication - How might we streamline the communication process between members so Cineworks does not act as an intermediary?
From early research, we were able to synthesize that there was an inherent communication gap between the organization’s staff and their member base as the Equipment & Facilities Manager, below, acted as the intermediary whenever a member had project-related inquiries. This led to inefficiencies within communication via email and was constrained to back and forth responses that were attended to during business hours. Members also had the option to add their business cards to the location’s physical bulletin board for project advertisement opportunities but this required a member’s internal motivation to travel to the location and on-site foot traffic to make this an effective marketing strategy.
2. Members saw Cineworks as a "Toolkit" - How might we bring back Cineworks’ roots in establishing community in order to build loyalty amongst their members?
After conducting user interviews and running a hands-on participatory workshop with the members to better empathize with their perspectives, we saw that members continually expressed that their interactions with Cineworks tended to be more service-focused to aid in their independent film production endeavors which led to a transactional experience. On the same hand, the organization tends to brand itself as a non-profit society that provides production-oriented services. However what members identified behind their decision to stay with Cineworks was because of the small tight-knit social community it cultivated but desired for this environment to be a larger focus of their operations.
3. New Members Have Difficulty Networking - How might we foster a sense of comfort and establish a welcoming environment for new members to approach other members for mentorship?
As members expressed their frustrations about having to communicate with Cineworks' staff to inquire about filmmaking talent from other Cineworks members, we decided to map their production-related experience at Cineworks to better visualize the user's journey and to communicate our findings among the team. This was also an useful design artifact that we were able to bring to Cineworks as a key status update every week. From the results, we thought there must be an opportunity to streamline the intercommunication, interconnection and intercollaboration among the members.
Target Member Population
Within our identified target user base, we were able to clearly distinguish two different user subpopulations within the overall member base. We used personas as an underlying design foundation to clearly articulate, communicate and understand the specifics behind the two subpopulation’s unique needs, personalities, motivations and frustrations.
Aspiring Filmmaker Experienced Filmmaker
Final Problem Reframing
Tieing back to Cineworks having both production and exhibition-related subareas, we had to determine and prioritize the subarea that was the most value-adding to the organization and its members. By conducting user interviews with both the organizational stakeholders and the members, we listened to their desires and needs of wanting a community that is rooted in member-to-member connections, collaboration, and creation of films. This was their definition of a community at Cineworks.
Constraints
Cineworks identified that they have a high pre-existing workload amongst their staff and limited manpower, so we needed to ideate and curate a concept that did not rely too much on continuous staff maintenance and monitoring.
Feature Decisions and High Fidelity Mockups
After synthesizing the research insights, we saw the most value-adding design opportunity in a member-based networking platform, Transcend, that allows the filmmakers to use film projects as a conversation starter.
Discover Projects That Pique Your Interest
On the main navigation, we wanted to provide the means for filmmakers to easily sift through projects to potentially find one that intrigues them for collaboration purposes. As per critique from the teaching staff, we intricately modified details to personalize the web application platform to Cineworks specifically through small additions of copywriting like the use of celluloid techniques, which stage of the production process the open project is in and if it was premiered at a Cineworks screening.
Ensure Relevancy to Filmmakers
We learned that filmmakers utilize "look books" which defined the aesthetic direction of the film and "storyboards" which were frame-by-frame sequences for the film. At the same time, we also learned that the most important factors for a filmmaker when deciding to join in on a project or not was the film's vision and if familiar crew were on board. As a result, we decided to add the additional media attachments on the detailed project view so the project director can further communicate their film's vision. The current on-board crew is also listed.
Utilize Clear and Simple Interactions
Expressing interest on a film project is simple through the microinteraction of the "Express Interest" button located on the side of the project that the interested filmmaker can interact with to send a quick direct message to the project director.
Evaluate Your Team Roster
By talking to filmmakers, we also learned that they want other crew members that have access to certain resources like film set locations or equipment in order to turn their film ideas into reality. This helped form the basis for how we constructed the profiles of Transcend users to tailor to things that matter most to filmmakers when they are evaluating potential collaborators.
Continuous Updates to Ensure Project Continuity
Keeping the crew informed on project updates keeps everyone on the same page which is set up in the form of a timeline on the project's detailed view. This helps prospective candidates get a quick taste of the project's progress before fully committing.
Exploration and Engagement Through Exposure to Work
We learned that filmmakers felt accomplished and positively acknowledged in the Cineworks community when they were able to see their work get exposure. We saw this as an opportunity to have a digital archive library where Cineworks members can add their completed film projects and be the inspiration for the community as well as get inspired from other Cineworks projects at the same time. As designers, our hope was that this feature would help reignite sparks for creative storytelling to flourish at Cineworks in which the ideas are limitless.
Success Metrics
We were able to validate our design’s success by gathering positive feedback from the Cineworks staff as key advocates for its implementation/financial support and also from conducting 5 feedback sessions from existing Cineworks members in order to continuously iterate on the tailored solution. To take it a step further, we were able to discuss initial implementation feasibility with the software developer contract company that Cineworks was using for its upcoming member website platform.
Reflection
Looking back on the project, I was ecstatic I was able to learn more about how to conduct various type of research methods and come up with a solution that would add the most value towards the organization’s growth for the future. If we had more time, I would have liked to get more implementation feedback from the software developer. This would have given us more design validity for our proposed concept so we can see a more prominent opportunity for members at Cineworks to use Transcend in their everyday, busy filmmaking lives. This project taught me the importance of considering the context of every potential user and to fully immerse ourselves in the users' shoes which informed the rationale behind design features as our purpose is to ultimately design a solution that would benefit the targeted users as well as Cineworks’ brand.