Carnegie Mellon

International Film Festival

An interactive digital archive for attendees to learn more about CMU’s past and present film festivals.

Role

UI/UX Designer

UX Researcher

Group Members

Srishty Bhavsar

Jennifer Kim

Teresa Yang

Graana Khan

Julianna Bolivar

Tools

Figma

Fig Jam

Adobe Creative Suites

Three.js

Globe.js

Duration

14 weeks

Class

BHCI Capstone - Carnegie Mellon University

CMU IFF is the only international film festival in the world that is organized and run by students from different universities. Their mission is to engage Pittsburgh with a festival that promotes cultural exchange and expression through the medium of film.


Problem: CMU IFF's archival website is not intuitive, engaging, or organized well. There is a lack of information about the films included in the screenings

CMU IFF Archive Website

Stakeholders

  • Isaac Fisher is the executive assistant and director of CMU IFF

  • Kari Galensky is the client liaison

  • Student Interns

  • Attendees

  • Sponsors fund the festival

Stakeholder Map

Research Questions

Question 1

How can the identity of the film festival and those involved be represented within an archive?


Question 2

What is an archive in the context of a film festival?


Question 3

How do you create intrigue circulating the archive and festival?


Question 4

Which stakeholder would benefit the most from an archive?

Research Methods

Comparative Analysis

First, we took notes on the archives of other film festivals. In comparison to CMU IFF, what stood out to us is that all of these organizations have a clear goal and values. Looking at the IFF website, it’s hard to understand their values at a glance.

Comparative Analysis

Fly On the Wall Observation

To learn more about how IFF functions, we sat in on one of their meetings. Interns are divided into teams, including creative, marketing, logistics, programming, youth outreach, development, and the short film competition. The IFF operation is large. They referenced several documents and spreadsheets during the meeting, which looked confusing to sort through as someone who isn’t part of the internal team.


Interviews

We held semi-structured interviews to deepen our knowledge about each of these stakeholders, and determine where the best design opportunities may lie. Our client stressed the importance of their interns. They wanted a solution that would at least in some way address the interns as important and central to IFF. 

4

Intern Interviews

1

Interview with sponsor

1

Interview with advancement staff

2

Fans/

Atendees

We conducted think-aloud walkthroughs with attendees to observe the journey of their experience using the current CMU IFF archive website. Some interesting suggestions were that the film archives should feature critic reviews. Participant #6 suggested that since the festival has strong themes around culture and diversity, there should be a search function or filter to see films by region.

We conducted think-aloud walkthroughs with attendees to observe the journey of their experience using the current CMU IFF archive website. Some interesting suggestions were that the film archives should feature critic reviews. Participant #6 suggested that since the festival has strong themes around culture and diversity, there should be a search function or filter to see films by region.

Journey Map of Think Aloud Interview Process

We placed our findings from the interviews into a FigJam and created an affinity diagram to organize our findings.


Interview Insights

Insight 1: Intern Training

With interns leaving each year, it is important to attract new interns and also train them on how the festival works.

“I hope students know that the events are held by students like them.”

- P1, Student Intern

“I wish [attendees] knew more about the cool films that [IFF] has.”

- P1, Student Intern

Insight 2: Sponsorship Packet

Sponsors prefer engaging with the sponsorship packet because it is comprehensive and straight to the point in communicating the festival’s impact. 


“The sponsorship packet was phenomenal as far as presentation and professionalism goes.”

- P3, CMU Advancement Staff

“Participation in cultural events around Pittsburgh have a productive, long term affect on the cultural environment.”

- P4, Former IFF Sponsor

Insight 3: Preconceived Notions

Attendees appreciate the opportunity to challenge their beliefs and preconceived notions through the festival program and panel discussions.


“I don’t want to be self centered or arrogant. The film festival provides a window into other cultures.”

- P5, long-time fan and regular attendee

“The people and audience are eager to talk, they want to know more, they want to have a discussion.”

- P5, long-time fan and regular attendee

Insight 4: Cultural Norms

Attendees appreciate the opportunity to challenge their beliefs and preconceived notions through the festival program and panel discussions.


“I really like the international insight and being there. ”

- P5, long-time fan and regular attendee

“The internationality of [these films] makes you empathize with other situations that are very different from us... it’s the highest value the festival gives. ”

- P5, long-time fan and regular attendee

User Focus Group

After interviewing a variety of stakeholders, we decided that the attendees seemed to be in the most need of an archive that would address both of the concerns of client in communicating the festival’s identity and the team and programming behind it.

After interviewing a variety of stakeholders, we decided that the attendees seemed to be in the most need of an archive that would address both of the concerns of client in communicating the festival’s identity and the team and programming behind it.

Ideation

Reverse Assumptions

Crazy 8s

Story Boarding and Speed dating

We visualized our ideas through storyboarding, where we focused on the need to express the culturally diverse aspect of the film festival, and we also ideated how someone might come across the archive to begin with. Ideas in our storyboards included a personality quiz, choosing your own avatar, and a physical booth to market the film festival.

We conducted speed dating on these storyboards to validate our ideas, and discovered that participants liked the aspects of “gamifying” the archive, as they thought it brought an element of fun. Additionally, as we discussed our storyboard with our client, he expressed interest in the physical booth idea to elevate the archive’s interactivity and as a means to bring exposure to the IFF. He could envision the booth acting as a marketing tool; a machine that they could reuse over the years and place in random locations to increase interest in the festival.

We visualized our ideas through storyboarding, where we focused on the need to express the culturally diverse aspect of the film festival, and we also ideated how someone might come across the archive to begin with. Ideas in our storyboards included a personality quiz, choosing your own avatar, and a physical booth to market the film festival.

We conducted speed dating on these storyboards to validate our ideas, and discovered that participants liked the aspects of “gamifying” the archive, as they thought it brought an element of fun. Additionally, as we discussed our storyboard with our client, he expressed interest in the physical booth idea to elevate the archive’s interactivity and as a means to bring exposure to the IFF. He could envision the booth acting as a marketing tool; a machine that they could reuse over the years and place in random locations to increase interest in the festival.

Lo Fidelity Prototype

Entering the lo fidelity prototyping phase, we prototyped concepts of both a physical booth and a kiosk interface.

This booth would be placed in the University Cohon center where screenings take place. We believed the physical booth could catch the attention of people walking through the university center and keep those in long lines interested.

  • Physical scale models of interactive spaces built with paper by Graana Khan

  • Digital renders of prototypes in rhino by Graana Khan

  • Kiosk Onboarding Screens


Our research indicated that users appreciated means of personalization, so we had personas like “Romance Ron” and “Action Amy” in our digital kiosk design. In the other two screens we visualized the globe concept. Our user testing results revealed that users enjoy the “game-like” aspects of the beginning interactions, and feel that the “spin the globe” is exciting because it’s like a Gacha game. (Gacha is a popular game where you win a random prize).

Our user testing revealed that people were confused about whether the user’s journey changes based on the persona they selected in the beginning. Ultimately we scrapped the concept of persona characters.


Our research indicated that users appreciated means of personalization, so we had personas like “Romance Ron” and “Action Amy” in our digital kiosk design. In the other two screens we visualized the globe concept. Our user testing results revealed that users enjoy the “game-like” aspects of the beginning interactions, and feel that the “spin the globe” is exciting because it’s like a Gacha game. (Gacha is a popular game where you win a random prize).

Our user testing revealed that people were confused about whether the user’s journey changes based on the persona they selected in the beginning. Ultimately we scrapped the concept of persona characters.

Mid Fidelity Prototype

Entering the mid fidelity prototyping phase, we redesigned our prototypes and tested them in person during the 2024 CMU IFF Film Festival

  • COUNTRY

    INDIA

    LANGUAGE

    HINDI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

    SYNOPSIS

    Guru, a young man in his twenties, works in a call center in Agra. In love with Mala, a work colleague, he stills lives with his parents, whose house is divided in two parts. Guru lives on the ground floor with his mother while his father is upstairs with his mistress. when Guru announces that he wants to marry Mala, and make the terrace of the house his future bedroom, nothing goes as planned. Frustrations, faults and family hatreds come to light, symptoms of an Indian patriarchal society with many taboos.

    ORIGINAL TITLE

    AGRA

    DIRECTOR

    KANU BEHL

    EVENT STUDENT PRODUCERS

    EVENTS

    Indian snacks from Kohli’s Indian Imports (Indian Groceries Oakland)


    Q&A Discussion with the Director of Agra, Kanu Behl. Moderated by CMU Professor Chante Cox-Boyd

    YIKUN YANG

    BAILEY DOWNIN

    AWARDS

    + Mumbai Film Festival: Jury Special Prize
    + Indian Film Festival of Melbourne: Best Director and Best Actor
    + Cannes Director's Fortnight: Quinzaine des cineastes nominee

    A QUOTE FROM

    KANU BEHL

    Agra ... is a film about repression, sexuality, our need for sexual expression, and how it relates to physical space.

    “

    ”

    GALLERY

    Agra

    Film Detail Page


  • DIRECTOR

    LILA AVILÉS

    COUNTRY

    MEXICO

    LANGUAGE

    SPANISH, ENGLISH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

    Click For More Details

    Film hover detail

Final Prototype

Overview

Working with the Carnegie Mellon International fIlm Festival, we redesigned their archive website.

The goal of this redesign is to increase attendees’ awareness of the festival’s multicultural emphasis and showcase the film events in an engaging way.