UX Case Study:
Collab
October 2025
Scope
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12-week mobile-first UX capstone
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Springboard program
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Role: Independent UX Designer
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Research → design → high-fidelity prototype
Overview
Collab is an app that helps indie filmmakers—those with limited resources and financing— connect with other creatives to finish their projects. Filmmakers often get stuck due to unseen friction points, making it hard to build a portfolio and advance in the industry.
My Approach
User interviews and surveys revealed that filmmakers were not struggling with hiring crew (our hypothesis) but instead struggling with pre-production - the creation of their stories. With this information, we shifted the app’s focus from production collaboration (hiring crew) to pre-production collaboration (connecting writers to directors). Through prototyping and testing, we refined ways for filmmakers to connect and work efficiently.
My Role
I led the full UX process, conducting research, synthesizing insights, designing interactions, prototyping, and testing, while defining the app’s tone and functionality.
The Problem
Your favorite directors like Christopher Nolan, Wes Anderson, and Denis Villeneuve, were all once indie filmmakers, telling stories on limited budgets before their vision earned them global recognition.
Indie filmmakers are creators who work with limited resources, small budgets, and minimal connections, making films with whatever tools and people they have access to.
Many aspire to build their careers from these humble beginnings, hoping to one day achieve recognition and make a living as a full-time filmmaker. But here’s the problem: many indie filmmakers can’t finish their projects. And without a finished film, it’s almost impossible to build a portfolio to start making a real living doing what they love.
How can we help indie filmmakers finish their projects?
Competitor Analysis
Our initial investigation led us to crew-finding websites. Films cost money, which is usually a large friction point for filmmakers.
Sites like Mandy.com, Production Hub, and Book Film Crew offer profiles that allow production crew members to connect and hire one another.
With this in mind, I believed that because there were many sites focusing on hiring crew, the main friction point for these Indie Filmmakers, for not finishing their projects, was due to not being able to find/ hire crew.
Our Assumption was totally wrong.
Interviews
I surveyed 50 indie filmmakers and found a revelation. 60% of them said they don’t struggle with finding crew at all.
In order to understand this, I interviewed 5 indie filmmakers. The information I received from them is what guided us into our next decisions.
Affinity Mapping
When we looked at all our research, we realized that even though filmmakers often talk about money and networking as being large friction points, most of the real struggles actually start way earlier — finding reliable creatives in pre-production.
“When you make an app that connects writers to directors, let me know!”
Martín Blanco
Film Director/ DP
What We Found
Indie filmmakers struggled with multitasking. They felt they needed to wear multiple hats (directors being writers, writers being directors) to finish their films. Having to wear multiple hats causes fatigue and slows them down, if not stalling them completely. They would rather work with someone else. This led us to our next question:
How might we create a space that allows creatives to connect during the early stages of their work?
Sketches
Our First iterations of collab did not have any pre-production collaboration concepts in place. We didn’t discover this vital information until midway through our design. This can be seen from our early sketches, below, up to our High Fidelity Mockups, which you will see later on. Even though this was the case, many fundamental design decisions were discovered before our synthesis. Including our foundation for our search screen and home screen.
Wire Frames
In an industry that runs on word of mouth, we knew users would want a quick way to look up collaborators by name.
At first, we thought categories would make navigation easy and organized. But to really lower friction, we added a search feature too — so creatives could find people either by browsing categories or just typing in a name.
Because collaboration happens mostly through talking, we decided to incorporate our collab resources (documents, photos, files, etc.) in the messages section of the app, making it streamlined for users to progress their creations.
High Fidelity Designs
It was in this stage that our Collaboration section took off. By defining a hub for collaboration that allowed easy organization with the flexibility that creatives need. This addressed the main pain point our users faced that we discovered in the research phase.
Intuitive Design
Dating App Swipe
Making it fun for creatives to find each other is part of the battle.. We wanted to encourage users to sift through as many potential creatives as possible. We were inspired by the dating app swipe due to its fast decision-making. It was important for us to lower decision fatigue- by forcing users to choose “yes” or “no” to a user before advancing to the next user, it would help them progress to the collaboration stage.
Resource Organization
A main friction point for creatives was that they had to micromanage tasks. It was important for us to build a space where creators could organize, find files, attachments, scripts and whatever else they need to work with.
Community
Creators often feel isolated or uninspired, which can lead them to stop creating and eventually stop collaborating. Visibility matters, so we created a space where creatives can share their projects and cheer on others' projects. Helping form a creative collective.
"I would so use an app like this if it were on the market."
Queentyie Akamelfula
Indie Filmmaker
User Testing
With our screens in place, next was time to test our app for functionality with our users. We did two rounds of user testing.
Round 1 (Five Users):
Through prototyping, we learned...
Intuitive
The app was intuitive (win!), but there were friction points that could make users leave.
No Need To Stay
One user mentioned they might leave the app after reaching out to a collaborator because they didn’t fully see the value of the Collab features.​
Paywall = Confusion
Introducing a paywall before accepting a collaboration invite made users second-guess starting a collab, often prompting them to revisit profiles and chats before deciding."​
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How might we reduce the time it takes for users to get started?
Hypothesis: If we eliminate the paywall for collaboration, there will be less friction in starting collabs.
Hypothesis: If we eliminate the paywall for collaboration, there will be less friction in starting collabs.
Round 2 (Four Users):
Through prototyping, we learned...
Our Hypothesis
was correct
Our Hypothesis was correct.
No Pay wall =
No Friction
Through prototyping, we found that there was no longer a friction point, making people second-guess their decision.
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Redundant Sections
The message section and the Collab section are redundant. Users were confused about why both sections existed, if resources were mainly in the messaging section.​
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Result
Many users told us that they would like to use an app like this, not even realizing the friction they faced or that there was a possible solution for pre-production.​
Going Forth: For our next stages, we would:
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Differentiate the collab section from the messages section.
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Focus on building out the User Profile
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Discover the legalities of collaborating on projects and integrating them into the user flow.
The friction points we see at first glance aren’t always the ones that matter the most.
Large Take Away
The friction points we see at first glance aren’t always the ones that matter most. While connecting filmmakers with crew is important, the bigger challenge lies earlier on — helping creatives manage pre-production.


By creating an app that allows creatives to connect in the early stages of their projects, we hope to get indie filmmakers one step closer to finishing their projects and becoming film directors like Wes Anderson or Christopher Nolan, who can make a living off their films.
Get in Touch
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