Letterboxd Redesign

Letterboxd is a social network platform for film enthusiasts. The platform allows users to log and review movies they’ve watched, create watchlists and collections, and follow friends to see what they’re enjoying.

Role

Project Lead & Activity Page

Tools

Figma, Figjam

Timeline

Sept. - Dec. 2024 (11 weeks)

Team

2 Design Leads, 4 UX Designers

Long Story Short

We restructured Letterboxd’s discovery and community experience to reduce popularity bias and make exploration more intentional.

The Problem

Letterboxd prioritizes popular films and high-engagement content, making niche discovery difficult and community interaction shallow.

The Solution

Making film discovery more accessible by highlighting niche movies, strengthening social features, and refining filtering and sorting for better exploration.

Research

The gap was clear, IMDb and Metacritic excelled at filtering and discoverability. While Letterboxd excelled in reviews and social features, personalization and discovery were inconsistent across all platforms.

To understand the landscape, we analyzed platforms like IMDb, Trakt, Metacritic, Goodreads, Last.fm, and ReelGood.

We interviewed and surveyed 15 Letterboxd users

1. Niche films were difficult to discover, leading users to rely on outside recommendations

2. Community engagement felt passive rather than intentional

3. Insufficient filtering and sorting prevent users from finding content tailored to their interests

Whether they used Letterboxd every day or once a year, we wanted to learn and understand their unique perspectives. This led to three core insights:

Ideate

We created a few user personas to better understand Letterboxd’s users

Indie Isaac represents Letterboxd’s largest age demographic (18-24), with his struggles highlighting the need for better indie film discovery and social engagement. The platform prioritizes popular films, and limited filtering and community features make it harder for users like him to connect and explore.

Picky Priscilla represents users who seek a more polished and organized Letterboxd experience. She finds the platform’s design repetitive and its features scattered, making navigation overwhelming. Additionally, she struggles with cluttered lists and disengaging community interactions.

We reorganized Letterboxd’s information architecture to make navigation clearer and discovery more intuitive.

We found that users had difficulty locating certain features, so we reorganized elements and introduced new features.

Design

With all our research in hand, we began designing by creating low-fidelity sketches

Each designer focused on two parts of the navigation bar and drafted multiple ideas. This collaborative process allowed us to combine our concepts and engage in discussions about our thought processes, ultimately helping us pinpoint key features that effectively addressed our insights.

onboarding sketches- letterboxd.png
home sketches - letterboxd.png
search sketches - letterboxd.png
add a film sketches - letterboxd.png
profile sketches - letterboxd.png

Using our sketches, we developed mid-fidelity screens

This phase allowed us to merge ideas from our sketches and generate new concepts based on the continuous feedback we provided each other. Below are some of the key screens we created.

onboarding mid fis.png
home and film mid fis.png
search mid fis.png
add a film and activity mid fis.png
profile mid fis.png

During mid-fidelity testing with 12 users, participants found the redesigned navigation clearer and easier to use

We identified friction with the purpose of the “Upcoming” tab and some button sizing issues, which informed refinements for the high-fidelity phase. Testing at this stage allowed participants to focus on functionality without being distracted by visual design.

Final Mockups

Onboarding

  1. New users can personalize recommendations during onboarding.

  2. Customization includes genres, languages, and streaming services.

  3. Users can also input movies they have previously seen.

Home

  1. The Home page features diverse film categories beyond "Popular This Week."

  2. Users can discover new films based on their interests.

  3. Enhanced filtering in Reviews and Lists tabs allows for quick content personalization.

Search

  1. The search page features trending searches and a dynamic search bar with rotating suggestions.

  2. Users can take a short quiz for personalized recommendations.

  3. Search now yields relevant results, including director profiles, upcoming releases, lists, and a follow option.

Search Filtering

  1. Robust filtering options help refine searches more effectively.

  2. Filter by decade, genre, and streaming service to find relevant results, with options to refine further by films, lists, reviews, and more.

Film Page

  1. The film page shows how well a movie matches a user’s preferences, with expandable details.

  2. Reviews, Lists, and Members are now more prominently featured for better visibility.

  3. Users can start comment threads under reviews, making conversations easier to follow.

Add a Film

  1. More tag options in the "Add a Film" section.

  2. Includes frequently used tags and personalized suggestions based on the film.

  3. Helps users better categorize and share their experiences.

Activity

  1. Improves notification clarity and relevance.

  2. You tab highlights interactions with your reviews, comments, and followers—removing redundant notifications.

  3. Updates tab replaces Incoming, focusing on favorite films and actors.

  4. Interest filtering lets users customize notifications based on their preferences.

Profile

  1. Easily update profile picture, favorite films, and display name directly from the profile.

  2. "My Library" is now more prominent, providing quick access to diary, reviews, lists, and films.

  3. Revamped settings for a more intuitive and user-friendly experience.

Growth

What’s Next?

If we were given more time to work on this project, our team would like to conduct a second round of user testing with our high-fidelity prototypes. This would ensure the changes we made from our first round were implemented correctly and are desired by users.

Personal Reflections

Co-leading while being co-president

While co-leading this project, I was also serving as co-president of the organization. Balancing my responsibilities as co-president with designing and leading a team was challenging, but ultimately rewarding. I was fortunate to have an incredible co-lead, co-president, and team of designers who made the experience less overwhelming. This experience taught me the importance of leaning on others when needed and not being afraid to ask for support.

Fresh perspectives

Before this project, I had never used Letterboxd, which initially made me doubt my ability to contribute effectively to the redesign. After some time, I realized that not being a user gave me a fresh perspective, allowing me to focus solely on what users actually wanted without being influenced by personal biases. This experience highlighted the value of approaching design with an open mind and reinforced the importance of relying on user research to guide decisions.

Questions?

If you have any questions or comments about this project, feel free to contact me either via email (angelahukic.design@gmail.com) or LinkedIn.