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Gramcity App

Find awesome places to take photos, wherever they are.
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Introduction

My Role
UX design
UI design
Brand design

Project Timeline
5 Days

Tools
Adobe XD
Trello
Pen and Paper

GramCity is initially a photo editing app that helps users easily make their photos look great before posting them on social media networks, and now the startup wants to help people find the most Instagram-able locations to take a photo in any city, such as tourist attractions, iconic architecture, public art, and anywhere someone could take good photos.

 

The new feature should help the users to find awesome places to take photos, wherever they are.

Design Constraints
・This is a feature for the GramCity mobile app. 
・The new feature should help the users find physical places and locations. 
・Create an active community of users to find and share their favorite locations.

Day 1 Map

I began by analyzing user research and personas to understand the different factors users consider when looking for great new places to take photos along with their overall goals.

User Goals:

SAVE TIME: ​Find great places to take photos to document trips without spending time researching or traveling out of the way to find them.

PLAN: Easily find locations and examples of the best photo ops before planning a day around visiting them.

Personas:

Nick - 24, traveler. Doesn’t like to spend time looking up locations ahead of time, he wants instant results that are close by without missing anything good.

Sara - 27, traveler. Plans ahead and wants to schedule her photo options around what other people are taking photos of, and bases her decisions on which photos look the best.

Day 2 Sketch

I began Day 2 by looking at other products on the market that I could use as inspiration. I started with Instagram, Google Maps, Pinterest, and the Samsung camera app.

I created an affinity map by putting all the information from my user research onto a sticky note.

I included my “Can we” questions and my HMW statements.

After gathering all my notes, I separated the sticky notes into four main categories:

  • Find a location

  • Planning the photo

  • Taking the photo

  • Sharing photos to share

Crazy 8

I spent 8 minutes hashing out 8 different solutions to categorize photo-ops, after which I was able to decide which I should proceed with. To create an intuitive design and to approach the product goals, I decided to highlight the following function in the product: 

・A stand-out search function 
・Quick switch between Discover, Map, and Profile page
・Minimalistic layout and recognizable icons
・Logical way to categorize each type of location.

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Day 3 Decide
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As a solo designer for this sprint project, instead of pitching my design ideas with my teammates, I reviewed all the design ideas from yesterday, evaluated them, and fleshed out a storyboard for the final solution I chose.

Screens include: ​

  • Location - Where are you going?

  • Filter - What are the best places for taking photos?

  • Browse - Find spots to take photos at.

  • Browse - Suggested

  • Location Detail

  • Map/Route

  • Photo edit option

  • Share photo

Day 4 Prototype

Prototyping has always been the part that excited me the most in a UX process, and I aimed to create a realistic facade that I can put in front of the users to gauge their reactions to my idea. 


To make sure the users can navigate and follow the flow with ease, I designed the UI aspects with the following:

  • The maximum white space reduced content overload. 

  • Straightforward navigation with both icon and text labels.

  • The primary purple is only used on CTA buttons or pop-ups. 

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Day 5: Test

Now it was time to show potential users my prototype and see if it worked as intended. I selected five participants, all of whom fit into my potential user- early to mid-20s whose favorite apps are social media.

During each session, I was testing specifically on: 

  • Find the specific photo-op and add it to the map.

  • Capture a photo of the location and make a post.

The results revealed a couple of things, bad and good, and the insights got me thinking about how I should iterate my design to make it more intuitive and user-friendly.

Most of the participants agreed the interface was simple and straightforward.

Design Sprint Learnings

Following the Google Ventures Design Sprint process, I learned a lot of skills that will help me during my career. The sprint process made me focus on producing quality UX content quickly and efficiently. I discovered new ideation techniques like the Crazy8 sketching method and how to manage your process while under a strict deadline.

 

All in all, I'm satisfied with the way the product turned out. I hope to take what I've learned from this and apply it to future projects to come.

View Prototype here

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