UX Design | IN-Class ClientAnalog Social Media Platform
Overview
A self proposed personal project; a UX case study and UI application for a social media platform designed for Analog Photography. Examining the problems with current platforms and the importance of a platform that prioritizes the needs of film photographer users.
My Role
Competitive Analysis, Research w/ Analog Photography Users, User Flows, Journey Maps, Wireframes, Prototypes, Prototype Testing, UX Design
Who Was Responsible
Designers: Owen Smith
Background
Creating a social media platform that allows film photographers to share their photographs in the way the artist intended them to be seen; without restrictive algorithms or formatting constraints.
I identified the current UX needs of analog photographers through research; examining the pros & cons of existing platforms, how algorithms impact artist’s self-esteem & mental health, the journey of a film photographer (from taking a photo, to having it developed, to posting it on social media), and what functions and features could be implemented for the photographer to showcase their art in the best way possible.
Clearly none of this would pass accessibility and proper UX but think it’s fun to include to show more of my aesthetic sensibilities and what I was working on 8 years ago in school.
Basic problems & ResearchProblem Statement:
Film photography is an art medium that has been growing exponentially within the last few years; yet film communities and subcultures are often neglected and forgotten about.
Users turn to film photography for both aesthetic and functional reasons. Aesthetically film renders colors and grain in ways that is often hard to replicate digitally, due to this the final image often requires little editing and is aesthetically in a league of its own. Even just the act of shooting film is seen as art form: although each step is costly (cost of film, cost of developing film, cost of scanning film, cost of printing images), each step allows the photographer to customize how their final photographs turn out. These steps and choices such as what film was used or what lens was used are highly integral to the photographer’s process, these are important to highlight when photographer’s share their work.
Film photographers use many platforms to showcase their work, however many aren’t optimized to show these images in the way they are intended to be seen.
Platforms such as Facebook Groups, Instagram, and Reddit are often used by film photographers to display their work and gain inspiration. Surprisingly film photography groups on Facebook are exponentially growing, despite Facebook’s declining user base. However each of these platforms has lost sight of functionality and tools that are helpful for photographers and other artist’s.
How Might We:
How might we create an app that reflects the needs of a film photographer, where attention is placed on functions and features that are specifically relevant to this art medium; and utilizes an algorithm that makes displaying artist’s work as fair and balanced as possible?
An example of a user flow pulled from the full research
A journey map from my initial research report
This is an older project of mine, I don’t have access to much of the extensive research besides what exists on this page from my old portfolio in the button below, feel free to take a look if you’d like:
Features & Functionality User Research Proved Should Be Included
It is clear that film photographers can be picky on how their work is seen. This is why this app’s process of uploading is fine-tuned to give the photographer as many options as possible for them to edit and tag their images properly. Here are a few of the features designed for them.
Constructive Criticism
Adding the ability to signify whether a user would like constructive criticism on a post allows the user to prevent unwanted critique or complaints. In photography communities on social media, this is a common frustration. Photographers don’t always want a random viewer telling them how they would have preferred the photo taken. However constructive criticism can be useful and some users (especially those starting out) desire gaining feedback on how to improve their work. Adding this as a tag when posting will allow feedback to get to those who need it the most, and not annoy those who want to simply post an image they are proud of.
Custom Borders
Another common pain when posting on existing platforms, is the inability to post the image with the aspect ratio it was shot at - forcing photographers to crop their image or add borders (which requires spammy third party apps). It goes without saying that no one wants to crop an image they carefully composed and edited just so it can fit on instagram. Besides avoiding being forced to crop an image - some photographers enjoy sizing their images within a custom border. A white border can work in the same way a custom matte works on a framed photograph - it gives depth and context, while also allowing the photographer to determine the size their work is viewed at on a digital scale (as important as deciding what size you would print an image to hang in a gallery).
Pixel Peeping
Pixel peeping is a recent concept that’s often negative in connotation. Pixel peeping is the act of zooming in at 100% to look at the in-depth details of a photograph. Many times this is done to point out flaws or examine quality issues within an image. Photographers hate this and due to the material qualities of film, there can be many factors outside of the photographer’s control that could resemble mistakes or errors - such as manual focus errors, scan quality, grain control, age of the film, etc. Giving the option to turn pixel peeping off, will prevent viewers from zooming in on an image if the photographer doesn’t desire it.
Required Tagging
Required tags will be one of the most useful features for photographers. When making a post it will require users to enter the film used, camera used, lens used, etc. This way user’s will be able to filter by these categories in order to find inspiration and technical analysis. Typing this information out is generally required on existing Facebook groups and Reddit subreddits in order for a post to be accepted.
A Few Selected Mock Ups From The App
Log-In
Once in the app you are prompted to Log-In or Create An Account, however you also have the ability to hide the pop-up and scroll through the home page. However, clicking on any functions you would need an account for (such as making a post) would require you to log-in.
Home Feed (Logged In)
A view of the home page, showing an image with a custom border and an example of how tags and other options are shown to users. The most important: camera, lens, and film are displayed first - clicking on one of these could take you to a filtered section of just images with that camera, or film, etc.
Home Feed (Filters Selected)
Showing the home page with filters selected, in the gray boxes at the top you can see the selected filters and the quick ability to delete one or add new ones. (Keep in mind I designed this in class years ago - this wouldn’t pass accessibility…)
Selected User (Profile)
An example of how a user’s profile would look that wasn’t your own. At the top would be images that the artist has chosen to feature as well as a tab for “series” that the user has created (essentially albums but each image is arranged, sized and viewed in a side-scroll as if they were hanging in a gallery). Beneath this is all the user’s work, available to be seen in a single scroll or grid, and with the option to filter by most liked, etc.
Selected User (All Work / Card View)
A view of how work would display when viewing a User’s work in a single feed format.
User’s Selected Series
As mentioned before, series are user-created albums that allow the user to group their work together, give it background and meaning - and have it all displayed in a structured and formatted way (reminiscent of showing a body of work in a gallery setting). The next images in the series appear by swiping to the side, this mimics the way of how photographs in a series are viewed in a gallery setting (moving side to side to view the artist’s next piece).