This application has been used in 6 countries, by over 30 film distributors such as Disney, Universal Pictures, Paramount, Bleecker Street, and Pure Flix. With it, executive users can plan their movie release calendar, comparing profit results both historically in terms of date or theatre location, as well as similar genre films, and a host of other metrics, to maximize their chances of success at the box office.
While a broad swath of the movie industry used this software for film distribution – and have for the better part of 20 years – the biggest knock on it was that though the backend was extremely powerful, their frontend had been given basically zero design or usability thinking whatsoever. I was recruited as the principle Senior UX Designer for the entire product suite to address this challenge. In real truth, this was more of an Art Direction role, despite my title. They really didn’t have a visual presence at all before I came onboard.
Moreover, several of their products (including this one) were still using VB (which Microsoft was discontinuing support for), so things were fragile and they were extremely overdue for an update. Working with the SVP of Distribution, I conducted an extensive design analysis of the product, and produced multiple iterations of design possibilities that could improve upon past interfaces, including animations of the product function. Senior executives from our firm then personally demoed the software design with distribution executives at the film studios to obtain feedback, which resulted in highly detailed, and very helpful critiques, as this is a lynchpin in the day-to-day functioning of many major studios.
Together, we created a host of new, powerful features that helped the company expand its client base significantly. This, plus other application design work that I did for them which upped their profile in the industry greatly, ultimately led to the company being bought in a merger acquisition in 2018, and allowed the founder to retire.