Designing a streaming app for smart TVs at Cineplex

Cineplex is Canada’s largest movie theatre chain, but while its theatres were dominant nationwide, its digital movie offering lagged behind. The Cineplex Store, a platform for buying and renting movies at home, existed but was built and maintained by a third party and had never been a strategic focus.

I joined Cineplex at the outset of an initiative to relaunch the Cineplex Store across mobile, smart TVs, and web with in-house teams. I was the lead UX designer for the smart TV application, working closely with a product owner, three developers, a visual designer, and a QA analyst.

The goal was not to directly compete with global players like iTunes, Netflix, or Google Play, but to create a complementary revenue stream that leveraged Cineplex’s existing strengths:

• A 75% share of the Canadian theatre market, with 70M+ annual guests.
• Co-ownership of Scene, Canada’s largest loyalty program, which could tie into the digital store for customer engagement and rewards.

The Challenge

We needed to design a smart TV experience that could attract both theatre-goers and loyalty program members, while competing in a crowded market.

Our key challenges and objectives were:

• Ease of navigation: Many users would be less tech-savvy, including older demographics who were highly engaged in theatres and Scene. Navigation had to be intuitive, clear, and efficient.
• Key flow optimization: The first-time user experience and the purchase path were critical touchpoints that demanded extra attention and iterations.
• Aggressive timelines: We had just 6–8 months to design and launch across multiple platforms, requiring careful prioritization of features for the MVP.

My Role

• Defined TV-specific design guidelines (overscan, minimum font sizes, navigation standards).
• Conducted competitive analysis using custom heuristics to evaluate existing digital movie apps.
• Partnered with a user researcher to integrate personas and insights into the design process.
• Owned end-to-end UX: user stories, wireframes, prototypes, usability testing, and collaboration with developers and visual design.
• Facilitated collaborative design sessions and ensured design consistency across the product team.

Research & Foundations

My first priority was to learn the unique constraints of designing for TV. I synthesized Apple, Google, and Microsoft guidelines into internal TV design standards for our team, covering typography, overscan, and navigation best practices.

In parallel, I built a competitive heuristic evaluation of platforms like Netflix, iTunes, and HBO Go, identifying both strengths and gaps we could learn from.

Meanwhile, our user researcher developed personas that challenged assumptions. For example, while we expected primarily tech-savvy users, research revealed a large group of loyal but less technical, more senior theatre-goers. This insight drove our emphasis on clarity and simplicity in navigation.

Defining MVP & Objectives

With timelines tight, we quickly locked the MVP scope: browsing, purchasing, watching, and integrating loyalty rewards. I created initial user stories and design timelines, prioritizing flows that were most business-critical.

From this, I defined three core design objectives:

Iterative Design & Testing

One of the project’s advantages was direct, weekly access to users. Every Friday, I conducted guerilla testing at a local Cineplex theatre with prototypes of that week’s designs. This cadence allowed me to rapidly test navigation structures, flows, and interactions. Larger lab tests complemented this with full end-to-end sessions.

Examples of iteration:

• On-screen keyboard: We tested QWERTY vs alphabetical layouts, measuring input speed and user preference. The result was data-driven and decisive.
• Purchase flow: Our initial multi-step checkout performed well in usability tests after many iterations. But when I later tested a single-page flow, it significantly outperformed the multi-step design — a reminder not to confuse incremental usability improvements with the best overall concept.

We also experimented with collaborative sketching sessions across the product team. While initially energizing, participation waned under deadline pressure. In hindsight, I could have adapted the format to better sustain engagement.

Collaboration & Delivery

Our cross-functional team worked in Agile, with design and development sprints running in parallel. I partnered closely with the visual designer to move from annotated wireframes and prototypes to high-fidelity deliverables.

Because initial UX estimates shaped the entire project schedule, it was critical to keep design delivery on track. When delays arose, when redesigning the purchase path for example, I worked with the product owner and devs to reprioritize, sometimes swapping in lower-priority but simpler stories to keep development moving.

Beyond our immediate team, we shared monthly updates with the larger digital org, aligning TV and mobile experiences and disseminating insights from our research and testing.

Outcomes

The project was a major success: we launched a brand-new smart TV app across multiple platforms in just 8 months, and results exceeded expectations:

• 6× increase in revenue post-launch
• User base grew from ~200k to 750k in six months (TV + mobile apps)
• 10× increase in device activations
• Revenue from connected devices grew from 22% to 73%
• Customer acquisition costs reduced by 80%

Reflections

Conclusion

This project stands out in my career as an ideal environment: direct access to users, a nimble team, full autonomy, and the excitement of building a product from scratch.

Even though conditions are rarely this perfect, I’ve carried forward the practices that made it successful: frequent testing, close collaboration, and adaptability under constraints. These lessons continue to guide how I approach digital product design today.