Reducing Cognitive Overload in Movie Ticket Booking
Classroom Project
Redesigning
2024
April
Role
UX Designer & Researcher
Timeline
5 Weeks
Team
Soumyadeep Roy
Suditi Mukadam
Riya Gondkar
Riya Ghatge
Project Brief
A cognitive redesign of the BookMyShow app to reduce friction, improve usability, and make ticket booking feel effortless for real users like Karan.
Role & Contributions:
Conducted heuristic evaluations and user testing to identify pain points.
Performed cognitive walkthroughs and task analysis to streamline flows.
Designed low-fidelity & high-fidelity prototypes for an improved user experience.
Presented research-backed redesign solutions focusing on usability and accessibility.
He’s a 26 year old engineer, loves his Friday night movies with friends. But when he opens the BookMyShow app, he’s hit by cluttered categories, pop-ups, and endless choices.
This is not just Arjun’s experience—thousands of users face similar struggles every day.
What if booking tickets could feel as effortless as the movie night itself?
Meet karan
Problem Statement
The BookMyShow app places an unnecessary cognitive burden on users during the ticket booking journey.
Cluttered UI, hard-to-find actions, poor error handling, and disruptive advertisements turn what should be a smooth, quick interaction into a frustrating experience.
Karan wasn’t trying to do something complicated. He just wanted to book a movie with his friends.
But the app made that simple task feel harder than it should be:
Overload
He was shown everything at once—with no help narrowing it down.
Navigation
The options he needed were hidden or buried under extra steps.
Recovery
There was no easy way to undo or fix small errors.
Interruptions
Pop-ups kept breaking his focus just when he was ready to move ahead.
What frustrated Karan?
The Redesign
Redesigned key screens to make booking simpler, faster, and clearer
Simplified Home Page Navigation
The homepage redesign replaces the cluttered secondary top navigation bar with a streamlined hamburger menu, simplifying navigation and reducing cognitive load.
This change allows users to focus on key movie recommendations while maintaining access to other sections without overwhelming visual clutter.
Before
After
Improved Filter Accessibility
The filter button has been repositioned to the bottom-right corner, ensuring better accessibility, particularly for one-handed use on larger screens.
This encourages more frequent usage of filters, leading to a more tailored discovery experience.
Before
After
Simplified filters using sliders and toggles, improving discoverability and encouraging users to interact with the feature effortlessly.
Before
After
Guided Seat Selection Experience
A contextual onboarding pop-up now guides users through the seat selection process, with an option to skip for experienced users.
Pinch-to-zoom interactions make seat navigation more intuitive, reducing friction in selecting preferred seats.
Disabled seats are now clearly labelled to avoid confusion.
Before
After
Smart Theatre Recommendation
‘Top 3 Nearby Cinemas’ section helps users quickly find the best nearby options, saving time by eliminating the need to scroll through an exhaustive list of venues.
Before
After
What Changed for Karan
Karan no longer had to search for filters—they were right where he expected them.
The homepage was focused, with fewer distractions and clear recommendations. Seat selection was guided, with labels, zoom, and helpful prompts.
Choosing a theatre felt easier with nearby options surfaced up front.
The redesign didn’t add features. It removed friction.
Popcorn & Plans
With the redesigned BookMyShow experience, Karan no longer dreads ticket booking. He opens the app and sees what matters most: nearby theatres, movie timings, and quick filters.
No clutter. No confusion. No cognitive overload.
Design Takeaways
Through targeted usability methods, this redesign tackled concrete interaction issues like simplifying navigation, reducing cognitive load, and clarifying user flows. Next, I would test these designs with real users to see what works, measure the impact, and improve the experience further.
Learnings
Research-backed design is essential – Every change, from filter placement to theatre recommendations, was rooted in usability principles like Hick’s Law and Fitts’ Law.
Small changes make a big impact – Simple shifts like seat selection guidance or filter repositioning drastically improved navigation.
Users’ perception vs. actual usability – While SUS scores were high, deeper research revealed pain points that weren’t initially obvious.
Explore the research & insights that drove this project.