Atlanta Film Festival
78% of attendees browsed on mobile. The site required account creation before showing seat availability. I redesigned the booking flow to remove both blockers — without losing the festival's artistic identity.
What is Atlanta Film Series?
The Atlanta Film Series runs 100+ films across 5 venues over a long weekend. The existing site had no filtering, required account creation before showing seat availability, and wasn't built for mobile — which is where most attendees actually use it. I came in as lead product designer to rebuild the discovery and booking experience from scratch in 4 weeks.
Role
Lead Product Designer
Timeline
4 Weeks
Tools
Figma, Miro, Adobe CC
The Outcome
Restructuring the IA and removing the forced account creation wall cut task completion time by 45% — measured across 8 moderated usability sessions with festival attendees. The dark-mode interface was a deliberate call: it matched the cinema environment users were already in when booking.
- check_circle Guest checkout — no account required to see seat availability
- check_circle Genre + mood filters across 100+ films — reduced decision time in testing
- check_circle "My Festival" schedule builder — let attendees plan across all 5 venues without leaving the app
What Research Showed
6 user interviews + competitive analysis across 4 film festival sites
100+ films, no filter
Every participant gave up scrolling before finding a film they wanted. Without genre or mood filtering, the list was unusable under time pressure.
78% on mobile, in-line
Most attendees checked the schedule while waiting to enter a screening — one hand, low light, 60 seconds of patience. The desktop-first layout failed all of them.
Account wall killed checkout
Users couldn't see seat availability without creating an account first. In testing, 4 of 6 participants abandoned at this step — before ever reaching the ticket selection screen.
psychology Constraints & Tradeoffs
Brand vs. Utility
The festival stakeholders wanted an avant-garde, art-forward site. User research showed attendees needed to find and book a specific film in under 2 minutes while standing in a queue. I presented both directions in testing — the artistic layout scored lower on task completion every time. We kept the dark cinematic aesthetic but prioritized information hierarchy over decoration.
Scheduling Across 5 Venues
Showing overlapping screenings across venues on mobile without creating a cluttered grid was the hardest UI problem. I tried a calendar-style view first — it failed in testing because users couldn't scan by film title. The final "My Festival" builder let users add individual screenings to a personal list instead, which separated discovery from scheduling.
What I Cut
In week 2, I scoped out a social sharing feature (attendees sharing their festival lineup) — it was in the brief but would have pushed checkout work into week 4. I flagged the tradeoff to the stakeholder and we agreed the booking flow had to ship first. The sharing feature was documented for a v2.
User Flow
Final Designs
Dark-mode interface built for the cinema environment — film discovery, filtering, and 3-step guest checkout.