Project
Memory Sharing App
Value Proposition
Save the memories that matter most.
Role / Time
Product Design / 2016
Context
The History Project was the B2C offering that evolved into the B2B company, Enwoven. Although the site is responsive, it was not a mobile first platform. The initial iOS app was barebones. The primary reason was that users who desired to capture life narratives would be engaging in a labor-intensive process, so presumably a desk with a large screen and full keyboard would be their likely environment.
However, we talked with customers to find a couple key insights:
- 1. People were becoming more familiar with "looking back" through technology (i.e. #tbt, Timehop, Flashback, Moments, On this day, etc.)
- 2. People wanted to keep memories accessible (i.e. not buried) with minimal effort when they are not at their desk.
II.
Approach
We identified the general opportunity to improve our mobile offering, not only by improving the mobile web experience, but also by improving the barebones native iOS app. Five fundamental actions would be: capture, collaborate, view, discover, and share.
III.
Learnings
After getting to a good set of designs to test, we started with the internal teams and highly engaged customers as the audience. Following several technical conversatios and reviewing usage data and resources, we scaled back the scope and decided to focus on a more practical utility app.
Would users really want another media app? How might we leverage existing behaviors to reduce friction for our users? What patterns might make sense for this scenario?
IV.
Iterations
Quickly, we designed a simple share extension, focusing mainly on educating users to what was then a relativley new possibility.
V.
Takeaways
It was a nice and fun change of pace to explore a brand new mobile app with lots of functionality and motion, but it was humbling to have to "kill puppies" (i.e. let go) of inspiring designs given the usage data and technical resources on hand. Also, if there's already a solid solution in place, use it. There's a time and place for innovation, but as they say, do not spend time reinventing the wheel.
