Picture House Cinema
Making membership visible when it actually matters.
Role: UX/Product Designer (Solo Project)
Duration: 6 Weeks
Methods: Journey Mapping, Competitor Analysis, Usability Testing, Behavioural Analysis, Prototyping
The observation that started it all
I'm a regular at my local Picturehouse. I've sat in the same seat on a Tuesday evening more times than I can count. So when I started noticing something off about the booking experience, not broken, just quietly losing money, I felt compelled to dig in.
Picturehouse has a membership programme that offers genuine value: discounted tickets, priority booking, and member-only events. The app lets you book quickly and easily. But these two things barely spoke to each other. I was a frequent customer completing transaction after transaction, and not once did the app suggest I might be better off as a member.
That's the kind of problem that doesn't create complaints. Users don't notice what they never saw. But quietly, it was costing Picturehouse recurring revenue and costing loyal customers money they didn't know they were spending.
Defining the real problem
The booking journey itself worked. Browse, select, pay , clean and functional. So this wasn't about fixing something broken. It was about identifying a missed connection inside a system that was otherwise doing its job.
When I mapped the full journey and reviewed the flow critically, three things stood out:
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Member pricing was never shown alongside standard pricing, users had no reference point
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Membership information lived in a separate section of the app, completely disconnected from the purchase journey
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To understand the benefits, users would have had to abandon their booking mid-flow, which nobody does
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The core behavioural issue: when someone is ready to pay, they won't navigate away to explore a benefits page. That window is open for seconds. If membership isn't visible in that moment, it won't be considered.
Reframing the question
Before jumping into solutions, I paused on the framing. The obvious question: "How do we promote membership?" leads straight to banners, pop-ups, and interstitials. All of which interrupt a user mid-task and risk damaging conversion.
I reframed it instead as: How might we integrate membership value into the financial decision point, without interrupting booking momentum? That shift changed everything about the direction I took.
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My Approach
After analysing the analytics and user experience of the Picturehouse Cinema mobile app, I identified several key areas for improvement. The app's navigation was confusing, and the content hierarchy needed refinement to make essential features like memberships, events, and ticket bookings more accessible.
Competitor Analysis
I reviewed the booking journeys of four UK cinema chains, Odeon, Vue and Cineworld, focusing specifically on how and where membership was surfaced within the transactional flow.
Key findings:
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Cineworld and Odeon both display a member price alongside the standard price on their ticket selection screens, making the saving immediately visible
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Vue surfaces a loyalty prompt at checkout with a clear, one-line value statement
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Everyman, whose brand positioning is closest to Picturehouse, uses subtle but persistent membership nudges throughout the journey without interrupting it
The pattern was clear: the industry had already validated that in-flow membership prompts increase sign-up rates without harming conversions, when done with restraint. Picturehouse was behind, but the direction was proven.
Mapping behaviour, not just screens
Journey mapping was the foundation. I mapped the booking flow not just as a sequence of screens, but as a sequence of decision types:
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Film selection: emotional, driven by mood and preference
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Seat selection: spatial, fast, low cognitive load
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Checkout: financial, the one moment users genuinely pause to evaluate cost
That pause at checkout became the key insight. It was the only place in the journey where a user was already thinking about money, meaning any membership information there wouldn't feel like an interruption, it would feel relevant.
Full Booking Journey: Decision Type & Membership Visibility
User Testing the Existing Flow
In usability testing, a participant completed a booking without ever encountering a membership prompt, revealing that the issue wasn’t resistance but timing. Users weren’t rejecting membership; they simply weren’t shown it at the moment they were actively evaluating cost. Checkout was the only screen where participants paused long enough to review their total and consider their spend, making it the natural design entry point. As one participant put it, “If it saves me money, just tell me now.” Users weren’t skeptical or opposed, they were simply uninformed at the exact moment it mattered most.
How I Used AI in the Process
I used AI during the iteration phase to explore layout variations quickly, test different microcopy options, and summarise usability notes. It accelerated the process meaningfully.
But the direction came from watching real behaviour. AI doesn't know why a user hesitates at checkout, or what it feels like to realise you've overpaid for something repeatedly. That reasoning, connecting user intent to design decisions to business outcomes, required human judgement. AI made the work faster. It didn't make the calls.
Designing for Mobile Constraints
With the research pointing clearly at checkout, the design challenge became about restraint, doing the minimum necessary to land the message without disrupting what already worked.
No modal. No redirect. No additional steps added to the flow. Just the right information, in the right place, for the right user.
Why not earlier?
Because before the total price is visible, users are focused on choosing a film and seats, not evaluating cost, so membership feels irrelevant and interruptive.​
Why not later?
Because once users enter payment, the financial decision is already made, and introducing membership creates friction instead of influencing choice.​
Therefore, the strongest intervention point is immediately after the total price is calculated and visible, but before payment confirmation, when users are actively evaluating cost yet, still open to adjusting their decision.
The logic was simple: inform, don't push. A user who sees the saving, and wants to act on it will. A user who doesn't is uninterrupted and completes their booking as normal. Either way, the experience improves.
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Early Wireframes
Optimising the user experience
By consolidating essential information into a single, user-friendly page, I streamline navigation and eliminate unnecessary clicks, providing an intuitive interface for quick, easy access to what matters most.
How to become a member screens
Learning & outcomes
This was a focused, targeted intervention in a functioning system, often harder than building something new, because it requires understanding what's working before you touch anything. what is called in physicology the "Golden Moment"
The thinking behind it: identify the one moment that matters, understand the behaviour happening there, design the minimum viable change that improves it, and protect what already works. That's the process I bring to every project, not designing for the sake of designing, but solving the right problem at the right point.