CASE STUDY: CARIBBEAN CINEMAS REDESIGN ✦

Making movie discovery and
ticket purchasing feel simpler.

ROLE UX/UI Designer
TIMELINE 5 Weeks
TOOLS Figma・Procreate・Canva
PLATFORM Mobile
TYPE Personal Project
01 / RESEARCH

Understanding the current experience.

Despite providing the basic functionality I needed, the mobile experience felt outdated and heavily based on the website. Frequent glitches, inconsistent interactions, and a lack of mobile-focused design made the experience feel frustrating to use. I wanted to explore how the existing experience could be reimagined as a more polished, reliable, and intentionally mobile-first app.

Rather than rebuilding the entire user flow, I focused on improving the parts of the experience that felt outdated, frustrating, or unnecessarily difficult. Apple's App Store reviews revealed four recurring issues:

01

Navigation

Difficulty moving between screens and inconsistent navigation behavior as well as confusing or unpredictable ticket purchasing.

02

Reliability

Seats becoming unavailable later on and different dates not loading.

03

Unnecessary interruption

Repeated popups for one single action.

04

Feedback

Important information was difficult to find, making parts of the experience feel unclear and harder to navigate.

02 / DEFINE

Defining problems, designing solutions, and measuring impact.

01

Making movie discovery easier

PROBLEM

Finding a movie across different theaters required checking theaters individually to determine whether it was still playing.

SOLUTION

Added a Leaving Soon section that displays movies nearing the end of their theatrical run and the theaters where they are still showing.

IMPACT

Reduces the effort of checking multiple theaters by surfacing time-sensitive movie availability in one place.

02

Making showtime selection more informative

PROBLEM

Showtimes did not provide enough information upfront, such as ticket pricing and screen format, leaving users uncertain about what they would be purchasing.

SOLUTION

Grouped showtimes by screen format and displayed the corresponding pricing and format information with each group.

IMPACT

Gives users the information they need to compare options and understand what they are paying for before continuing.

03

Easier movie ticket access

PROBLEM

The current app does not provide a dedicated place to access purchased tickets, requiring users to search for their order confirmation when they need to scan their ticket.

SOLUTION

Added a dedicated Tickets tab where users can access their purchased tickets directly within the app.

IMPACT

Makes tickets faster to access at the theater and eliminates the need to search through email or switch between apps.

03 / IDEATE

Exploring possible solutions.

Given one of the most important pain points, I mapped the core ticket-purchasing journey to identify the primary screens and required decisions. Afterwards I sketched wireframes to visualize the structure of the user flow. I also sketched wireframes for features I wanted to tackle outside the initial user flow to enhance the overall experience of the app.

Ticket purchasing user flow
Early wireframes for the Caribbean Cinemas app
04 / DESIGN

Turning ideas into a visual system.

I wanted the redesign to feel familiar while creating a cleaner, more intentional mobile experience. I preserved recognizable elements of Caribbean Cinemas' visual identity while restructuring the interface around mobile-first interactions.

Original Caribbean Cinemas home screen
Redesigned Caribbean Cinemas home screen
Original Caribbean Cinemas showtimes screen
Redesigned Caribbean Cinemas showtimes screen
Original Caribbean Cinemas concessions screen
Redesigned Caribbean Cinemas concessions screen
05 / PROTOTYPE

Making the experience feel real.

As soon as I had the hi-fi prototypes ready, it was important to me that the design was fully functional and covered all of the necessary workflows. In order to facilitate the user testing, an interactive prototype was developed, focused on the primary flow:

Homescreen → Showtimes → Amount of Tickets → Seat Map → Concessions → Checkout → Order Confirmation

Caribbean Cinemas interactive prototype
VIEW INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE Open in Figma →

✦ The prototype also includes supporting flows for rewards, ticket management, profile settings, and other app features.

06 / ITERATE

Refining what didn't work.

Usability testing revealed areas where additional context could make the experience clearer and easier to navigate.

BASED ON USABILITY TESTING

Users wanted more information about screen formats and pricing before selecting a showtime.
I expanded the format details to provide more context while keeping pricing visible.

First ticket screen
Updated ticket screen with expanded screen format information
BASED ON DESIGN EXPLORATION

I found that visually identical ticket types felt repetitive and made it harder to distinguish their different purposes. I introduced visual differences to make each ticket type more recognizable.

First showtimes screen
Updated showtimes screen
07 / WHAT I LEARNED

What the process taught me.

01

UX isn't always obvious: Something that seems straightforward to a designer may not be intuitive to a user. During usability testing, when asked to find their rewards points, one participant immediately went to the Profile tab and overlooked the dedicated Rewards tab. From their perspective, anything related to their account including rewards, belonged in Profile. What feels like an obvious information architecture decision to the designer may not match the user's mental model.

02

Edge cases are important: While testing the existing experience, I discovered scenarios that the interface didn't account for, such as allowing child tickets for movies with age restrictions.

03

Consistency should have a purpose: Initially, I had the upcoming & past tickets visually identical for consistency. However, the result made the interface feel repetitive and visually flat and so I learned that consistency should establish familiarity and structure, while intentional visual differences can help users distinguish between content with different purposes.

08 / FINAL EXPERIENCE

The experience, reimagined.

The final redesign brings movie discovery, ticket booking, concessions, rewards, and ticket management into a clearer, more cohesive mobile experience.

09 / FUTURE DESIGN OPPORTUNITIES

Where the experience could go next.

01

Movie-based profile collectibles

Allow users to unlock movie-related profile images after purchasing tickets, creating a small incentive for returning users and movie enthusiasts.

02

Personal movie history

Add a yearly calendar showing dates when users attended movies, giving them an easy way to revisit their personal movie-going history.