RE-DESIGNING HOLLYWOOD OPS •
CENTRAL CASTING TALENT MGMT APP

Double Digit Increases Casting Talent

OPPORTUNITY

Entertainment Partners is one of those Hollywood institutions interwoven throughout most of the LA entertainment industry.  In this case, they were working with Central Casting (circa 1925) to update their paper based talent registration, profile management process, and hiring operations.

Their first MVP product was focused on providing an easy, online (accessible, searchable, democratic) method for extras to enter personal and professional profile details.  Initial design explorations by another team relied on a linear method of collecting this data equaling about 50 screens of Next buttons. Not surprisingly, initial design explorations tested very poorly.

My goal was to renovate this approach though customer insights, offering the team a successful alternative.

APPROACH & STRATEGY

My discovery began by diving into existing data as well as research on similar digital services. I followed this up with generative and evaluative research techniques to inform my design strategy and solution. Once I had good set of insights, I designed design artifacts for further testing and refinement.

PROCESS & METHODS

Research
Structured interviews, Survey, Contextual inquiry, Usability testing

Design & Product Strategy
Storyboards, UX design, Prototypes, Design / Product strategy

I began by analyzing existing insights captured in notes and field recordings. Inspiring new questions, I continued with structured interviews, and surveyed samples of casting agents and registered actors. Looking to this data, I designed v1 storyboards, wires, and prototypes to put in front of the team and talent using contextual inquiry and usability testing to refine the concepts.

I iterated through a few versions, layering in features and functionality with each round of testing ensuring that UI and interactions were elegantly and successfully integrated into the design strategy, and the designs for the app.

These findings and my design solutions were distilled into an executive product and design strategy.

RESULTS

Research artifacts are confidential. I am happy to share details in a zoom call.