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Experience • Design
Letterboxd

The social app that hides friend activities, so I changed it

The context

about the product

Letterboxd is a social app for film reviews and discovery. It acts like a diary to record and share your opinion about films as you watch them, or just to keep track of films you’ve seen in the past.

my role and the team

Just a frustrated user of Letterboxd.

Dissecting the homepage

Dissecting the activity page (the better homepage)

What I did

Creating a cultural first impression

To make the first fold feel more culturally relevant, I’ve introduced a dynamic hero banner. This allows users to instantly see what’s trending, specially if a major movie has just been released, offering a snapshot of the current cinematic landscape. It gives you a feel for what people are watching and builds a sense of community around shared moments.

I also brought “Popular with friends” and “Popular worldwide” into one space with a simple toggle. It makes it easy to flip between what your friends are watching and what’s trending everywhere, helping users to stay connected and in tune with the bigger picture.

Bringing friends to the forefront

Since Letterboxd is a social app, it makes sense that users would want to see what their friends are up to right away. Whether it’s a new review, a watched movie, or a freshly created lists, these updates are often the most interesting part of the experience.

Instead of hiding them behind tabs, everything is now front and center. And if there’s something you don’t care to see (like list creations or watchlist adds), you can simply filter it out. It’s all about keeping things open while giving you the control to tailor what shows up.
I’ve kept the like button off the review thumbnails 🤯
This is because of how notorious it is to get a like in Letterboxd and this will also make getting a like more meaningful.

Streamlining the bottom navigation

I made a few small tweaks to the bottom nav to simplify things. First, I removed the separate “Activity” tab and merged its content into the “Home” tab. This way, users can see updates and friend activity all in one place.

Then, I added a “Notifications” tab which was previously the “Incoming” section in the “Activity” tab.

I also made the “Add” button stand out more—it’s the main way users create updates, like posting a review or making a list.

What I’d do differently

Survey active Letterboxd users

Since I only know a handful of Letterboxd users, and just one of them is really active, it’s been difficult to make well-informed decisions with such limited input. That said, even with just a few quick questions, I noticed a common trend: most of them mainly use the app to check out what’s popular globally.

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