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882 words
Matt's Thoughtscape
Role
Product Designer
Tools
Figma
Claude Code
Timeline
3 weeks
View Matt's Thoughtscape
CONTEXT
Building a website that showcases my opinions about different forms of media
As I'm a very opinionated person, I like to rate/review new experiences. This applies to many different things in life; food, books, movies, etc. Two of the most popular apps on the app store are made for reviewing books and movies: Goodreads for books and Letterboxd for movies. They have a combined user base of more than 150 million people.
I use these opinions as a way of telling people who I am and what I like. When a new person wants to know what I'm like, I think it'd be interesting to show them my media diet than describe myself. My taste is part of my identity.
PROBLEM
Reviews of books/movies are split in to two different apps
The problem with the current landscape is that Goodreads and Letterboxd are two different apps. There is no single place that can represent my full taste across mediums. If I wanted to show a person everything, it'd be cumbersome to navigate through two different apps.
SOLUTION
Thoughtscape: an entryway into my media opinions
DESIGN DECISIONS
What features does Thoughtscape have?
Canvas Layout
Most review sites present content as a list or feed, forcing you through it in a fixed order. I think about films and books visually, through their posters and covers, so I designed the canvas around that. Instead of text descriptions leading you to content, the covers and posters become the interface. You land on the page, see everything at once, and click whatever catches your eye.
Admin Mode
The canvas also gave me something a list never could provide: editorial control. I built an admin mode that lets me drag and rearrange entries however I want. If I just watched something I want people to see first, I move it to the center. If a book changed how I think about something, I can surface it. The spatial layout becomes a curation tool, not just a display format.
Reviews
When I think about what a review actually is at its core, it comes down to four things: what it is, who made it, how I felt about it, and what I thought. Date watched and genre are supplementary — interesting in some contexts but not essential to understanding a review. Including them would add cognitive load without adding meaning. So I cut them.
Books & Movies
One of the most important decisions I had to get right is differentiating books and movies. If you lay a book cover flat and a movie poster flat, they would look like the same object so I needed to make them distinguishable. I chose to give book covers a page-curl on the bottom right because that is reminiscent of when you’d turn the page of a book. While a slight addition, its impact is enormous
VALIDATION
People want to make a thoughtscape of their own
After several iterations, I showed the website to a friend and they asked how they could make one for themselves. This confirms that the problem wasn't unique to me and that this is something that people are interested in making.
This led to an opening for an important question: should this be made public for anyone to make?
View Matt's Thoughtscape
NEXT STEPS
What are the next steps for Thoughtscape?
Add filter system
The most immediate next step is a filter and sort system. I want to enable users to filter by rating, media type, newest, etc. The canvas works well for browsing but there's no way to find something specific right now.
Understanding how to incorporate music
Adding albums or songs as a third media type would complete the picture of my media diet, but the data problem is different.
Gauging people's opinions on making this public
The biggest open question is whether this should be a product. A friend who saw Thoughtscape asked how they could make one for themselves. That moment made me wonder whether the experience I built for myself is something others would want.
NEXT PROJECT
