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Project
Overview
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BACKGROUND
Moments is a startup in Texas ran by three actively social parents who noticed a missed opportunity in the market: on demand photographers to capture the smaller moments in life.
THE PROBLEM
The founders experienced the following problems within group gatherings:
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Assigning someone within the group to take photos
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Sharing those photos within the group
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The one to play photographer during the gathering was often left out of the photos.
THE SOLUTION
The Moments app was the solution to these problems. Allowing users to quickly hire a photographer so they can be in the moment with their friends and family. All guests will have access to these photos, and have the option to vote on their favorite images.
The App Experience
Three unique experiences within the app.
THE CLIENT
The role of the client is to book a session with a photographer, and host the session within the app. The client will be able to invite friends to partake in voting on the photos, and have access to saving and downloading the images.
THE PHOTOGRAPHER
During the session, the photographer is using his/her phone to take photos of the group within the app. This is to ensure the photos are not saved in his/her phone.
SECRET MODE
The name and experience within this section will remain a secret until the app has been developed and released. Until then, all I can say is this experience is a combination between client and photographer experience.
EMPATHIZE & DEFINE
Understanding the users & problems
RESEARCH GOALS
During this project there was three types of research conducted, foundational, secondary and design.
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The initial research goals were to gain a better understanding of the target audience and the situations in which they would use this app along with what identifying what the competitors were doing.
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The design research consisted of usability testing to better understand if we designed an app that would be impactful, and identify the areas for improvement.
METHODOLOGIES
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Survey - 15 participants
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Competitive Analysis
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Essential features analysis (MVP)
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Usability testing
SURVEY
FOUNDATION RESEARCH
After surveying 15 people to learn more about who the target audience would be and what problems they current encountered, we learned:
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75% were women
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48% of those women were mothers
This data changed our initial plans and altered the approach to be more mindful of safety, and exploring options for photographer alternatives (aka secret mode.)
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
SECONDARY RESEARCH
The market is full of on-demand photography, but we learned in the competitor analysis that we are offering unique features the competitors are not, such as the group voting.
IDEATE
Exploring Solutions
USER FLOW
Establishing the information architect of the app, and how the user will move through the experience was a crucial step in this process. After mapping out the overall experience, I zoomed in on the specific user flows to uncover any potential unhappy paths.
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Wireframes
Similar to the user flows, the wireframes went through various alterations. Due to this stage of the project, I was finalizing the wireframes and initial prototype for stakeholder review, and early user testing.
Being an advocate
users
THE PROBLEM
Unfortunately, there was a major setback at this point of the project which caused two major constraints. The previous development team was replaced with a more robust team, which resulted in a budget and development restriction in oder to streamline the process. This resulted in scraping the user testing.
MY SOLUTION
During my initial research I learned that the product we were building was unique to the market. I knew testing some of the major flows was essential to the success of this app. So I took matters into my own hands, to ensure the users needs were being met and conducted a moderated usability test on 8 people on my own time. Below were my findings.
PROTOTYPE & TEST
Exploring Solutions
Identifying the Unhappy Path
The new constraints were impacting the initial designs, so we often met together to talk through potential solutions. One instances, was the user flow for changing their initial vote. The developers had requested to put a back button on an existing design (as seen on the right), but this did not seem initiative, so I conducted a moderated A/B test on a few users.
User Objective: Change Vote
Dev Request Flow: When a user changes their vote, they will select an image in their gallery which will bring them to a screen that reflects the voting screen. From there they change their vote, and click the go back button to navigate to the gallery again.
Problem: The voting screen is highly active with images coming in from the photographer and replicating it for another purpose caused confusion in the A/B tests.
Happy Path
Solution: To create an initiative flow the solution is creating a pop-up when they select an image. The pop-up allows them to like, dislike, save or download, and does not take them completely out of their current experience.
Test results: Users were 5x more likely to finish this task faster
Outcome: I presented the testing results to the team advocating for the users experience. The outcome was the development requests in order to streamline the process for a MVP launch. Once the next round is available for launch, these changes would be made.
DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
Preparing for MVP
Visual Systems
I created the branding and design system for the app. The design system not only allowed for a faster workflow, but served as an essential piece in the development handover.
Final Deliverables
50+ screens designed in Figma for development handover.
The Moments app was the solution to these problems. Allowing users to quickly hire a photographer so they can be in the moment with their friends and family. All guests will have access to these photos, and have the option to vote on their favorite images.
Final
Thoughts
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NEXT STEPS
The app is currently in development with a focus on MVP.
COLLABORATION
In the lifespan of this project, I collaborated with the three founders, two sets of development teams and the project manager.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
During this project, I learned the importance of user feedback. There are various things to take into account such as development restraints, business goals, but my role as the UX designer is to be an advocate for the user. To bring in their feedback at various stages of the app to ensure a product we are developing for them is aligned with their needs.