How we delivered a web platform to publish information about movies and TV shows while helping entertainment buffs connect with each other.

The client got in touch with us for the development of his basic idea into an MVP. In order to better understand the client's requirements, we conducted a product discovery workshop where we demonstrated our expertise in Product Design Strategy and Web Development. We showcased our ideas through a wireframe which we displayed in a pictorial format. Leveraging our proficiency in MVP Development and Performance Optimization, we emphasized the importance of a smooth user journey. This greatly impressed the client, who then decided to collaborate with us in turning their ideation into reality. 

We assisted them in overcoming a variety of business challenges via our collaboration and general engagement. The following stand out among them:

• The first step was designing a conasolidted website representing an online database of information and details about various movies and TV shows. Owing to the large volume of information, we leveraged the expertise of our design team in addition to the client’s considerable input. This ultimately enabled us to easily integrate all the information in a pictorial format.
• Data management was the next most important part of the project. The foremost concern was the vast database attached to the entertainment industry. We handled this by scraping data from the IMDb (Internet Movie Database) in a steady and organized manner. Next came the scrutiny surrounding X-Rated movies and TV shows. The primary issue was with movies and entertainment shows rated "X" in India but not in other countries. This made it difficult to filter the data being imported into our platform. So our team came up with the idea of incorporating country-specific parameters and filters to address this efficiently.
• Handling the large amount of information attached to our project required an equally large server. Our qualified team recognized the impracticality of real-time data import in the initial stages. To resolve this, we bifurcated the data importation process into two parts, separately dealing with listing page data and detail page data, respectively.
• Owing to the many components at play, we recognized the importance of managing the load time for the home, listing, detail, and timeline pages. For each respective page, we resorted to the following solutions—

Homepage: Here, data was supposed to be imported based on various parameters such as top-rated movies, latest releases, and more. The large number of films and entertainment shows negatively impacted the page's loading time. We resolved this issue by ensuring only 20 movies are fetched to the homepage for every parameter. We also included a lazy load to keep the speed intact and facilitate a smooth user journey.

Listing Page: The search results were overabundant, even with our option for Advance Filters. This compelled us to display information in batches of 20, where every scroll would show the next batch. As a result, we achieved our desired speed and efficiently promoted customer retention by preventing them from getting annoyed.

Detail Page: As the name suggests, this page supported a great volume of data, including movie details, comments, reviews, etc. We also included actions such as "Watchlist," "Seen," "Book Tickets," and more. However, information about "Related Movies" was the primary culprit when it came to increased load time. We addressed this by fetching data in batches and also added a section-wise lazy load to maintain the speed of the page.
 

Timeline Page: Lazy loading helped address the dilemma surrounding this page as well. We displayed fixed comments with every post, avoiding compromising on real-time data.

• Our team dedicated special attention to building a solid review mechanism to showcase all user reviews in an organized manner. Since reviews were not as simple and straightforward as we had hoped, we proceeded with a bifurcation, according to the reviewers. At this point, we included four categories, namely "You," "Everyone," "Friends," and "Critics ."Here, "You" showcased the reviews provided by the user; "Everyone" showcased all the reviews provided by all users in general; "Friends" showed reviews by the user's friends and connections; and "Critics" showed the reviews provided by movie critics. It was important to build separate roles on the website to categorize such reviews, which we did.
• Due to the platform's use of Drupal, it was rather difficult to manage real-time comments and responses without sacrificing load time. Additionally, every submission led to a page reload. This pushed us to customize the plugins and make use of jQuery to achieve a real-time comment and review mechanism without page load.
• Our technological proficiency and design expertise enabled us to complete the development of the client's OTT guide platform within the given timeline. Following the client's requirements and specific instructions, we created a social platform where users can have individual profiles, followers, and more. We facilitated the appropriate display of information by building certain custom categories such as "Topics of the Day," "Trending Movies," etc. We also added some automated attributes like "Top Reviewer of the Month," which would help users socialize and maintain retention.