Introducing MovieMode

We are so thrilled and excited to announce a new feature on the BookMyShow app, “Movie Mode”. Here is a quick walk-through of what made us build it and how we built it.

We at BookMyShow are always keen on delivering a delightful experience to our users. Well, for us as a design team, what better project could have been to simply work on ‘delight’ as a primary objective—a non-tangible metric?

There are three main steps when planning to watch a movie or attend an event. In Movie Mode, we went the extra mile to enhance the user's experience when watching a movie.

After lot of internal discussions and user study with multiple users, we made a first cut of the movie mode.

These ideas are all fancy. But we also didn’t want our users glued to their screens instead of watching the movie. So, we distilled the steps into a way that will help users at a few critical points.

The movie mode band shows up in the app home screen 24 hours before you are about to watch the movie. It magically reveals the Movie mode which essentially is a timeline of the tasks that you would naturally do.

The top band shows the movie you are about to watch and X minutes left to start the show. This band settles and stays persistent while you are scrolling through other cards.

The rest of the movie modes are all sets of cards tied using a timeline view running vertically. Each card has a specific function. Here is how they serve you…

We carried forward our legacy of showing the mode of transport which you see while booking the number of seats. The only difference is a style of illustration; to which we will come back later in this post. This card helps you to invite more people to movie mode (coming soon)

If you are going to a particular theatre for the first time, worry not! You can book a cab or directly launch Google Maps along with an ETA to reach the venue.

We believe this is the most useful feature of MovieMode. No more digging through your emails opening the link sent in SMS or even opening WhatsApp messages to find your QR code. Simply flash your QR code card. We also made sure that the size of the QR code was bigger than usual so as to avoid any scanning issues. There are few theatres in India that do not yet accept QR codes (M-Ticket), we have them covered as well. Just show the booking ID on the card at the Box office to get your physical tickets.

By this time you might have scanned your QR code and are about to enter the auditorium. So we show you this automatically. The “Your seats” card helps you clearly see the auditorium and seat numbers without any other information.

If we are not wrong, you are in your seats and ready to watch the movie. We strongly believe in theatre etiquette and don’t want to annoy other people in the auditorium with our bright screen. Everything you experienced so far while scrolling through different cards can be seen in dark mode as well. The switch is given at the bottom of all cards. Here is a quick look at how things look in dark mode.

The palette used for these illustrations is background agnostic. So be it white or dark, we have used the same image. This helped us to keep the size (in terms of KB) of the feature less and also re-use the same illustrations in both backgrounds.

If you have booked your meal while booking for the show it shows up as a card. Even if you didn’t order, you can do that now through movie mode. Explore the menu and order on the app. Skip the long queues and get exclusive discounts also. Brilliant! isn’t it?

This section is not timed exactly but appears around your food card. In this version, it is a static image but we plan to deep dive as the feature evolves. Maybe tell me the exact time you have to plan your loo break or stand in the queue for your popcorn & tacos.

Every time you book a movie with BookMyShow, you are eligible for free coupons powered by Burrp! Claim your coupons and enjoy rewards after the show.

This was the most exciting part which even we loved while building it. A small heart slider enables you to rate the movie you are watching. It helps us to know your taste, while helping friends, family and others who plan to watch the movie.

There are few more cards like, asking for feedback about Movie mode itself, Head back home, Put your phone on silent mode, End of show and more…

Initially this feature was only for SuperStar users and today we have opened it for all BookMyShow users. We are all ears to know your feedback and would like to evolve it by making it more engaging.

For now, give it a spin if you are a Superstar and let us know your suggestions. Hope you like it!

Last but most important, I would like to thank the team, Anand, Anush, Nemi, Disha, Deepali, Akshay, Gaurav, Vinit, Kunal, Deepam and guided by Srinivas, Nishanth, Sahil, Shubham and Viraj. Design contributors — Kedar, Niyati, Pratiksha.

Originally published at we-are.bookmyshow.com on January 25, 2019.