Project
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Glimpse
A social app that deepens intimate relationships through shared photo albums and story collections.
Info
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Project Type
Team Project
Role
Product Designer
Timeline
Jan 2024 - Feb 2024
Team Project
Role
Product Designer
Timeline
Jan 2024 - Feb 2024
Context
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Photos, as carriers of memory, capture and preserve the precious moments we share with those close to us. In the age of social media, countless photos are uploaded and shared every day. Yet, as I scroll through this endless stream of images, I find myself pondering a question:
Do these shared moments truly help us forge deeper emotional connections?
In the swiftly scrolling feed, photos have become akin to fast food – our attention to each fleeting for only a few seconds. While this quick interaction offers a convenient way to stay in touch with friends and family, it seldom reaches the depth of emotional ties we yearn for.
End Result
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We've developed a social application, Glimpse, which facilitates sharing life's moments in a more intimate and emotionally valuable way through interactive and personalized shared albums and photo story collections, referred to as “Glimp.”
Glimpse aims to unlock the emotional value contained within photos, assisting users in creating new emotional connections through photos as a medium.
Memories Reimagined
Glimpse vividly presents individual and collective memories in the form of Glimp compilations. This approach allows users to deepen relationships with family and friends through the sharing of photos and personalized storytelling, offering a novel way to strengthen bonds.
Conversations Through Captures
In the Glimp compilations, an interactive chat area is incorporated, using photos as a medium to foster new interactions and emotional exchanges among users.
Intimate Albums, Private Echoes
Personalized private album group management helps users share and reminisce over precious memories with their loved ones in a secure and exclusive space.
Crafting Memories, Your Way
By introducing two modes of compilation creation—smart recommendations and manual crafting—Glimpse helps users unearth wonderful moments of memory, making every fragment of reminiscence accessible
Uncovering Issues
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User research —
findings & insights
To gain a foundational understanding of user habits regarding photo sharing and social media usage, we conducted 8 semi-structured interviews. Here are the survey results.
1. Relishing Intimate Sharing's Ease
User experience reveals that sharing photos with close contacts brings a sense of ease and comfort, a stark contrast to the carefully curated sharing for approval on social media. Within intimate social circles, there's no need to overly consider others' judgments or labor over editing photos for likes, nor are there excessive privacy concerns.
Jana: "I just send my family the raw, unfiltered pics. They get the real me, no need to dress it up."
Kai: "I'm not big on posting to Insta these days. I only hit it up for the big news, like when I was moving places."
2. Developing A Deep Emotional Connection
User experience research indicates that merely sharing photos and videos as the primary form of interaction makes it challenging to establish profound emotional connections. Richer emotional bonds often emerge from the stories behind the photos and the discussions they spark. A platform that encourages the free expression and sharing of these personal stories can facilitate deeper emotional exchanges among users.
Joy："I don't just want my interactions with friends to be all about likes, you know? I hope our photos can spark real conversations, create new kinds of exchanges between us."
3. Revisiting Photos, Rekindling
Emotions Stumbling upon old photos can evoke profound nostalgia for the past. These emotionally charged memories, triggered by photos, not only make people miss the experiences shared with friends and family but also prompt users to reach out to them, rekindling those warm feelings.
Paul: I stumbled upon a group pic from our college days on my phone, and man, did it hit me with nostalgia. So, I shot it over to a few friends. We got chatting right away, like no time had passed at all.
Problem Statement
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Through user interviews and research on existing photo-sharing social media and album management applications in the market, we have decided to focus our design on solving this issue:
How to leverage photos' emotional value to strengthen intimate connections？
Design Process
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Low fidelity
sketches, ideas & flows
We ideated over potential solutions and user flows. We used sketches to solidify ideas and draw out how we wanted the interactions to work.
Medium fidelity
designs & wireframes
After some initial Ideations, we decided on a solution based on shared albums, a platform designed for sharing photo stories. I created mid-fi wireframes to build out interactions and flows to test with users.
Usability testing
findings & iterations
I conducted a small usability test with 4 individuals. I was looking to test clarity, completion and comprehension of the different features I made.
1. Optimizing Feed Flow Aesthetics
Feedback from testers indicated that the feed interface was visually cluttered, making Glimpse less appealing. We refined this interface by simplifying the Glimp cards, focusing on highlighting cover photos and titles for a cleaner look.
2. Diverse Photo Viewing Modes
Some testers found the photo viewing options in Glimp compilations too limited. To address this, we introduced two new viewing modes: 1. Immersive Mode, where photos automatically play as a slideshow accompanied by fitting music, allowing users to fully immerse in their memories; 2. Waterfall Mode, which facilitates browsing through a large number of photos with ease.
3. Encouraging New Glimps Creation
Some users mentioned that the current process for creating a Glimp was too cumbersome, potentially dampening their enthusiasm to share. In the final release, we've integrated smart recommendations in the creation page and prompt users to create a new Glimp when uploading photos to an album, thereby encouraging more frequent sharing of Glimps.
High fidelity
