Gather
Photo app feature for deepening connections through sharing and reacting
UI/UX + Motion Designer
Individual Class Project
Overseen by Professor Axel Roesler
3 Weeks
AfterEffects + Figma
PROMPT
Redesign a daily interaction
I began this project by exploring the interaction of sharing photo albums, an act both mundane and rife with meaning. Rooted in the idea that people share photos to strengthen collective memory, my goal was to create a design that would enrich this experience.
THE CHALLENGE
How might we strengthen and enhance collective memory between people through the experience of sharing photos?
How might we strengthen and enhance collective memory between people through the experience of sharing photos?
DESIGN PREVIEW
A Sneak Peek
Photos and people.
Gather is a photo app, simplified. The app offers the user two main functions: perusing their photos and engaging with the people they care about, focusing user’s attention towards what matters most in a photo-sharing app.
A shared space for two.
People are represented by profile pictures, with size and position determined by how many photos you have together and how often photos are shared between the two of you. If the user think it’s inaccurate, they can move them around.
Clicking on a profile brings the user into their shared “album” with the other person.
Quick react to memories.
Hold down to add a like, message, or voice note to media in your shared album. These additions are tagged to the media and can be seen and engaged with by the other person.
Deleting an image or video in this shared space removes it from this space, allowing the user to revoke its access.
IDEATION
What could this look like?
To the sketchbook!
I started with broad brainstorming, considering various features for photo-sharing. During this phase, a challenge I faced was trying to let go of mobile app conventions to open myself up to opportunities, but I had a hard time parsing what was novel and fresh vs. what had been done before (and proved to not work).
To adhere or not to adhere?
I had to make a decision I don’t often have the authority to make: whether to stick to the original app’s visual identity or to create a new identity. While exploring this space, I often became so immersed in the original app’s design that I lost sight of my design's purpose, focusing on implementing features that didn’t address the challenge and already existed.
Ultimately, I chose to design a new visual identity to focus my efforts towards creating a streamlined and purposeful user experience. On the right, you can see how I visually crossed off unnecessary features to help me keep me on track.
ITERATIONS & EXPLORATIONS
Development
An almost feature
A sharing feature I considered was one where users could share a photo by utilizing face recognition technology. By using the data in contact apps and photo apps, contact info would be paired to faces, allowing users to share media directly or contact the person via text/call.
While this idea has its merits, it didn’t stand alone as the sole design interaction nor did it feel natural to add it as an additional feature on top of another design. As such, I ended up not going forward with this idea.
More features ≠ Good design
I also experimented with alternative photo organization methods, like location-based or frequency-based views. In these views, users could look through photos differently—in the case of the frequency-based view, users could navigate photos by seeing which photos they’ve gone back to the most, mimicking how memories grow stronger the more they’re recalled. However, these features did not address the challenge and were ultimately unnecessary additions.
Less is more
Inspired by a classmate’s simplistic menu design, I restructued my concept around simplicity, focusing on two main sections: photos and people. To make the app feel more personable, I envisioned people as bubbles, dynamically sized to represent personal closeness.
THE DESIGN
Gather
NEXT STEPS
What’s next?
With more time, I would develop the sharing action itself and exploring how to create a shared group album. Additionally, if the time frame had been longer, I would have conducted more formal user research, as my lack of research led me to speculate my user’s wants and resulted in a design less grounded in evidence.
TAKEAWAYS
What I Learned
Know your design history.
Before deciding whether to adhere or move away from conventions, you must first know what they are. Without consulting design history, it’s easy to fall into the trap of designing what has already been done.
This became increasingly clear while working on this project. Consulting the teachings of time not only informs how to design, but also how not to design.
Research is key.
Evaluating various features was a large portion of my design process—a process that could’ve been smoother with more research. Much of my time was spent speculating what users would want, and I had a harder time deciding what feature to pursue without evidence to back up my decision.
In the future, I will ensure that I always take time to research, even with time constraints. Research isn’t just for research; it’s for insights and application.
SHOUT-OUTS
Thank you!
Thank you Professor Axel Roesler for your guidance throughout this project, I greatly appreciate your enthusiasm and insight. Also, thank you to my design peers for their feedback and engagement throughout this project!
A suggestion my classmate gave me! Hidden in the corner is a sketch of one of Axel’s quotes.