collaborative
photography

initial research

All initial project research was led by myself and one other designer, with some help from our two design interns. Our process primarily consisted of:

• Find internal research docs involving collaboration and photography
• Meet with internal teams that work in the consumer or photography space
• Conduct a competitive analysis across photo sharing applications
• Create journey maps and personas to identify user pain points and wants
• Receive feedback on initial prototypes from other designers
• Hold internal user testing sessions

Our initial research began with meeting 10 potential users to learn about their interactions with photography and sharing methods. We compiled ourkey findings into one document for reference. Our first pass concluded with two trips to Portland, OR where we met with photographers who walked us through their photo curation and sharing workflows. All interviews were filmed and compiled to guide future design iterations.

Key findings included:

• Users want a "one stop shop" to upload, manage, share and interact with photos
• No easy, intuitive way to share photos across differing tech levels, operating systems, and devices
• Users want to know their photos are safe and easily shared to small, private groups

version one

personas

I worked with two other designers to create 10 personas under 3 different photography use cases: wedding photography, soccer parents, and friends on a trip together. The full persona document is here.

journey map

user flows

site map

wireframes

web screens

One other designer and I collaborated to create an initial outline ofdesign guidelines and brand traits. Key descriptors: minimal, integrated, inherently social and inclusive. Brand traits: approachable, encouraging, organized and expert (but not superior).

mobile screens

version two

whiteboarding

After finishing the first iteration of prototypes, I spent 2 days with the Director of Enterprise App Design, who gave feedback and led brainstorming sessions. We walked through designing for the First Time User Experience (FTUE) and how to know when a product is "good enough" for V1 shipping.

Ideas on where to go:

• Adopt a more thorough UX process (include usability testing in every milestone)
• Innovate in the collaborative space (curation, multi-user editing, easy sharing)
• Start designing animations and delightful micro-interactions

A more thorough summary of our time together is here.

web screens

development

I started on the team by assisting with fairly simple UI changes in the codebase, and later became one of 2 engineers implementing the final UI redesign and all ongoing feature development. The live web application can be found here. We had a "soft shipment" in February 2019 with a release to all employees and their friends and family — over 500 signups in the first month with very positive feedback.