Star Cinemas came to Codeeo with a clear brief. They needed every screening, offer and payment in one place their customers could use on a phone.
About the client
Star Cinemas is the cinema arm of Phars Film, a distributor that has worked in the Middle East since 1964. The chain runs more than 100 screens across 16 venues in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain, and programmes Hollywood, Bollywood, Arabic and Emirati titles side by side.
Its flagship multiplex at Al Ghurair Centre in Deira opened in 2022 with fourteen halls, later extended, and carries the chain's first Dolby Cinema screen.
What they needed
A cinema sells a seat for a specific showing in a specific hall, and the decision is usually made on a phone within a few minutes of leaving the house. Every screening, offer and payment had to sit in one place that could be read on a small screen without pinching and scrolling.
The chain also programmes in several languages at once, so the same interface had to make a Malayalam release as easy to find as a Hollywood opening, and had to hold up when a major title goes on sale and everyone arrives at the same time.
What we built
A booking platform where showtimes, venues, offers and payment sit in a single flow that was designed for the phone first and the desktop second. A visitor picks a film, a cinema and a time, chooses seats on a plan that matches the hall, and pays without leaving the flow.
Seat selection is the part people abandon, so it was built to stay legible at small sizes: a seat map that scales to the hall, clear states for taken, held and chosen seats, and a hold that does not quietly expire while the customer is entering card details.
Language and location live at the top of the journey rather than buried in a menu, because a customer in Ajman looking for an Arabic showing should not have to walk past twelve Dubai listings to get there.
How we worked
We mapped the booking journey before any interface was drawn, from the listing to the confirmation screen, and agreed where the customer could reasonably drop out. That map is what the design was tested against.
Load was treated as a requirement, not an afterthought. Cinema traffic is spiky by nature, and the platform was built and tested for the evening a big title goes on sale rather than for an average Tuesday.
Star Cinemas holds the accounts, the domain and the code. Nothing about the platform depends on us being in the room.
Services provided
- Web app development
- UX and UI design
Related services
