Click through the full prototype above, or open it in Figma →
30-second summary
Problem
Social features have no clear home, navigation is inconsistent, and ~30% of mined reviews asked for TV tracking that doesn't exist.
Approach
Secondary research only: 50+ community reviews mined, 5 competitor apps audited. No moderated sessions with real Letterboxd users.
Key decision
Four targeted changes, not a rebuild: protect the minimalist, film-first identity that reviews name as the reason people love the app.
Status
Concept only. Not built, not user-tested. The business case is reasoned from the research, not measured.
The problem
To find out where Letterboxd's mobile app was actually falling short, I audited five competitor apps (Trakt, IMDb, Taste, TV Time, Goodreads) and read through 50+ community reviews and forum threads looking for repeated, specific complaints rather than one-off gripes.
No home
Social features exist but are scattered across screens with no obvious entry point.
Inconsistent
Navigation patterns shift depending on where you are in the app, so nothing feels learnable.
~30%
of mined reviews wanted TV tracking that doesn't exist, naming Trakt and TV Time by name.
One user had already designed the fix in their head: "there should be a toggle button that switches the UI to all TV shows until you toggle it back to movies."
Two people, one app
Alex, the curator
Wants depth: award-based discovery, curated lists, critic-level detail on what he's watching.
Jasmine, the sharer
Wants connection: what her friends watched, replying to reviews, arguing about last night's episode.
Neither was served by one undifferentiated activity feed. Any fix had to work for both without turning into two separate apps.
Four moves, not a full rebuild
The minimalist, film-first identity is most of why people love this app. So the redesign stayed narrow: four targeted changes, each answering a complaint I'd actually read.
1. Give social an actual home
Friends' activity and the add-friends action move from buried in submenus to the top of a unified feed.
2. Give the profile one home base
Diary, Watchlist, and Lists lived behind separate top tabs above an ad-interrupted feed. A My Library grid puts every collection one tap away from the profile itself.
3. Make posters work harder
Award badges and age ratings on the poster itself, so recognition happens before anyone reads a word.
4. TV, on its own terms
A toggle switches the whole UI between film and TV mode: episode reviews, season tracking, separate feeds.
From sketch to shipped-looking screens
I started with low-fidelity to validate the new information architecture, mid-fidelity to
add and validate new content and TV tracking, high-fidelity to lock the visual system.
Dark, near-black base (#14171C), cyan-blue accent (#00BFFA) for primary actions, an orange accent
(#F27405) reserved for emphasis. Dark enough to stay out of the way of vibrant movie posters.
Current
1. Social home
2. Profile
3. Posters
4. TV
Redesign
1. Social home
2. Profile
3. Posters
4. TV
Hover a screen to zoom in. Each column pairs with the matching move above.
Why this would matter to Letterboxd
No live product means no retention or revenue numbers to report, so here's my reasoning that ties each decision to improved stakeholder value.
Retention, against a named competitor
Almost 30% of the reviews mined were asking for TV tracking Letterboxd doesn't have, pointing users to competitors such as Trakt and TV Time.
Engagement, from a named gap
Social features existing with "no clear home" is a discoverability problem with a direct engagement cost: a feature users can't find is a feature that doesn't drive return visits; centralizing it targets session frequency.
Protecting what's already working
The redesign stayed to four targeted changes to keep the minimalist, film-first identity intact — it's named as "most of why people love this app" in the same reviews. A business case for change has to survive not damaging the retention driver that's already working.
What I learned
This is built on secondary research of what active users request the most online, not direct sessions with Letterboxd users. What this taught me was discipline: every decision traces to a pattern that showed up repeatedly.
It also taught me restraint. It would have been easy to turn "add TV support" into an excuse to redesign half the app. Shipping four changes that answer real complaints, and leaving the rest of Letterboxd's identity alone, was harder than it sounds as an avid user.