Conversational chatbot to order movie tickets using your mobile phone.
For a movie theater, called Natlab, based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, I researched, prototyped and tested a conversational chatbot. The goal of this project was to discover if and how an effective mobile chatbot could be designed that supports users (scoped to students) to find interesting movies and book tickets.
University project Design & User Research, Prototyping, User testing
2019
Chatbots are useful to get automated results from large directories. Together with the Natlab Movie Theater, I explored a chatbot to find movies to watch. I started the project by meeting the client, conducting background research, and exploring audiences and platforms.
To better understand the user, I conducted qualitative research through interviews and quantitative research by handing out questionnaires for one week to visitors who went to see a movie. The aim was to discover what users usally do to find an interesting movie to watch and how they do this specifically at Natlab.
The journey for each user was very different. For example, whereas watching the trailer is a must for some, others are very strict and do not want to get any spoilers through trailers or descriptions. The results of the user research were mapped into a simplified user journey. This gave insights into the movie-finding process of the user and it identified important parts in which the chatbot could help.
To facilitate all users, the chatbot had to be very flexible. I created a converation flow to visualize the logic, responses, and behaviour of the chatbot.
Then, I developed the chatbot according to the conversation flow. I used Flow XO for prototyping.
I tested the prototypes with users by giving them two tasks to complete: (1) 'Think about a day this week you would like to go to the movie theater. Use the chatbot to complete your entire process from beginning till end', and (2) 'Think about a friend with whom you have been to the movies recently. You are planning on going again tomorrow after dinner. Use the chatbot to complete your entire process from beginning till end.' I observed them and did follow-up interviews afterwards.
The findings of user testing are captured in a set of 9 guidelines (about topics such as language tone and conversation flow) to provide directions for further development, as well as some additional conclusions which I presented to the client.