MYSPOT

Creating a location scouting application for photographers, models, and everyday adventurers

RESEARCH | WIREFRAMES | BRANDING | USABILITY TESTING

THE STORY

Photographers, models, and even just everyday adventurers have never had an app made just for them. A place to easily save new locations, remind themselves what they love about those locations or even just a place to be inspired by like-minded people.

So I developed an app where they could do just that.

With a lack of digital resources for photographers how can we create an app that helps them with their daily needs, like saving locations quickly and adding details to those locations. How might we allow them to easily find inspiration through other like-minded people?

THE PROBLEM

An aesthetically pleasing application that allowed users to come and be inspired by like-minded individuals, with the ability to pin a location in a matter of seconds and organize all of the resources they use on a daily basis.

THE SOLUTION

DISCOVER YOUR USER

DISCOVER YOUR USER

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

Considering I was creating an application that has never been done, I didn’t have much to work with as far as direct competitive analysis. So I got creative. I broke down our MVP and looked into apps that have similar features that I was looking for, such as applications that allow you to save photos, follow people, and save locations. I wanted to see how they were handling their layout. This way I could rework and combine features and layouts from all of these to recreate something that would be useful for our end users. In order to do this, I did a competitive analysis of 3 different apps: Pinterest, Instagram, and Zillow.

  • PINTEREST

    LIKES:

    -Has an easy search function and you can look for exactly what you’re looking for

    -Easily follow people without ever having to click on their profile and can see a preview of the photos they have saved or posted

    -On the homepage, they have an easy scroll bar to narrow down their options of what they are

    DISLIKES:

    -Having 4 photos to view might be too much and leaves too many people with blank or incomplete slates in their boards

  • INSTAGRAM

    LIKES:

    -There’s a small profile picture

    -You can add a biography

    -There is an add button at the top, but it could be easier to find or see

    -Small previews of the posted photos so you can get a sense of whether you want to view more photos and details of theirs

    DISLIKES:

    -Unnecessary to have the username up top, or at least more prominent than the person’s name

    -Could use a smaller button to indicate editing the profile, we want this option to be available but could remix it heavily

    -Don’t need messaging or a feature that allows for daily postings in our application at the time

  • ZILLOW

    LIKES:

    -You can save locations in numerous stages

    -You have the option to view locations in a list or on a map

    -Can easily view the address of the location before you click on it

    -Focuses on photos and the details of those photos at the same time

    DISLIKES:

    -Lacking a way to preview more photos before expanding them

USER INTERVIEWS

 I conducted 3 casual interviews with people to get to know them and learn about their routines to see if I could find where their key pain points might be.

  • JAMES, 47, PALM BEACH FL, PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER

    Finds it frustrating when he comes across a photo he loves and it doesn’t say where it’s from

    NEEDS A PLACE THAT’S INSPIRING AND RELIABLE

  • EMMA, 27, KANSAS CITY MO, AVID TRAVELER

    Always finds amazing places to come back to on long road trips but has a hard time remembering them later on

    NEEDS A QUICK WAY TO SAVE LOCATIONS ON THE ROAD

  • SHARI, 36, TEMPE AZ, NOVICE MODEL

    Wants to break into the professional modeling world but often feels like a nuisance messaging professionals online all the time

    NEEDS A PLACE WHERE SHE CAN LEARN FROM PROFESSIONALS

SURVEY

JOURNEY MAP

I created a dual journey map. Based on my research and what my users were trying to accomplish, I set a list of goals for them. I then went through how their journey normally goes with having to use multiple forms of media in order to keep track of their resources and showed how this process could go from frustrating, confusing, and exhausting to easy and seamless.

PERSONAS

DEFINE THE PROBLEM AND SOLUTION

DEFINE THE PROBLEM AND SOLUTION

RESEARCH INSIGHTS

We gathered all our research and pulled insights that directly affected our MVP:

  • PEOPLE NEED A WAY TO EASILY SAVE LOCATIONS

  • WANT TO GIVE OR RECEIVE TIPS ON HOW TO TAKE BETTER PHOTOGRAPHS

  • AN EASY EXPLORATION OF UNKNOWN PLACES THAT HAVE AN ADDRESS LISTED

  • A PLACE TO BE INSPIRED BY LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE

USER STORIES

SITEMAP

USER FLOWS

SKETCH IT OUT

We looked at a lot of inspiration and checked back on our competitive analysis, and we took all of our flows and maps and started thinking about how the layout might look for our wireframes and UI. We sketched a lot of variations before ultimately landing on ones we thought would be the most intuitive for our users and promote optimum Usability and Accessibility.

CREATING WIREFRAMES

We then took these sketches and created low-fidelity wireframes to make sure we liked the layout of everything and that we weren’t missing any vital information, and that we had our MVP covered, before turning them into high-fidelity wireframes.

DEVELOP THE IDEA

DEVELOP THE IDEA

CREATING A BRAND

When creating a brand, we wanted to focus on the Why. Why were we creating this app, and who were designing it for. What feelings did we want to evoke in them while using the app? Our main goal, especially since no other app like this has been made before, was to empower our users to feel important and in control of their surroundings, while also brightening up their day and making them feel happy and creative. While working with an app that includes maps, and people’s passions, we want to inspire a sense of trustworthiness and safety in our app. Our users are above all creative, passionate, adventurous people who are organized and determined

CHOOSING COLORS

I chose colors that induced the feelings we were trying to convey while also correlating well with each other. A midnight blue, that inspires a sense of authority and power that users had been missing out. Yellow, which is famously known for being for making people happy with a hint of gold to help with courage and passion. Bright Orange, which stimulates creativity and enthusiasm. A sky blue that promotes feelings of trustworthiness and reliability, with hints of white to make things look clean and generally make people safe.

TYPOGRAPHY

When choosing typography we went with something that was modern and innovative like our users, but fonts that also matched up well with each other. We also wanted font families that contained multiple font styles in them so we could remix parts of the app without straying from the original design.

SELECTING A NAME AND MAKING A LOGO

We wanted to represent our users and how they would be using our app so we played around with a few names before finally landing on MySpot. This represents two things, a user's spot to come and let their creative energy shine and find inspiration, and literally saving their spot to their profile. We kept with this energy when creating the logo and had two lines, representing these two meanings, and created the name, replacing the O with a circle around a pin to represent the ability to scout locations and quickly pin them.

FINAL LOGO:

EXPLORING POSSIBILITES

The last major decision we made before creating our mockup screens and prototype was deciding on a homepage photo. We really sat back and looked at our options. This was the first impression of the app for users and we wanted it to truly represent what the app was all about. We looked at all of our possibilities and narrowed it down to two photos that had a path. This represented the user’s journey through the app and the path to finding a new adventure and location.

THINKING ACCESSIBILITY

When adding colors and final touches to screens we touched on accessibility again. We made sure to use contrasting colors, and use white backgrounds where they were necessary. We made sure we also included multiple ways to follow people and save locations, and that those buttons were extra prevalent and noticeable.

HIGH FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

DELIVER A USEFUL PRODUCT

DELIVER A USEFUL PRODUCT

USABILITY TESTING

We ran four tests to test the usability of our app. Two chalk mark tests, one on our homepage and another on an explore page that had multiple functions. We tested our working prototype and then finally had our users take an exit survey.

CHALKMARK TESTING

Our chalk mark tests had really good results, people were able to digest the question and find the correct answer in under 15 seconds. The only two mistakes were that one tester thought that going to ‘my places’ was where you might follow someone, and one tester thought that the logo/title was a button for their saved locations.

WORKING PROTOTYPE TEST

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

  1. COULDN’T FIGURE OUT THAT YOU PULLED DOWN TO GET OUT OF EXPANDED PHOTOS

  2. COULDN’T FIND A QUICK WAY TO GO FROM FOLLOW TO EXPLORE

  3. FINDING THE BACK AND HOME BUTTON TOOK LONGER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE

EXIT SURVEY

Finally, we had our testers take a quick exit survey that gave us some cool insights. The best part of the exit survey was seeing that what people wanted to add to the app were already in our medium and low priority User Stories, this gave me confirmation that I was definitely on the right track and getting closer.

WHAT THEY SAID

SYNTHESIZING DATA

I took notes on each tester and then came back to go over everything they had in common and pulled out shared frustrations and important changes to make on the application

THE OUTCOME

We got rid of the home and back buttons and added a cool and modernized drop-down navigation menu with the back button included so it’s bigger and bigger thumbs won’t cause errors for users. We added a filter menu to help narrow down the explore section so users could always see what’s most relevant to them at the time. We added our share buttons and map links to Maps, and we fixed our accessibility problems with colors. All of these changes greatly improved the overall usability of the app.

WHAT’S NEXT

  1. An onboarding process that incorporates machine learning into the app so it has a nice personalized touch for users and is more relevant to their needs

  2. Creating login and create account screens

  3. Blank slate screens on how the app will look when a user first downloads it

  4. Preference testing- possibly between a light UI and the Dark UI, or creating both and letting users choose in the onboarding process

  5. More Usability Testing

  6. An advanced Compass API where users can view the camera in the compass to really find and share the perfect angle

REFLECTING

Overall this project went really well and was a lot of fun to do. I learned important lessons along the way, and still produced a product that could drastically improve the lives of many people in the professional world of photography, and the lives of the everyday adventurer. Looking at different applications that possessed the features I was looking for helped me not only include everything I wanted in a way that was familiar to users but also let me remix them in a way that felt new and exciting to the user. This was really fun to do, and it produced an app that testers exclaimed was aesthetically pleasing and extremely usable and intuitive. However, the downfalls of our user testing could have been avoided if I had looked further into these competitive analyses. If I had not just looked at the layout themselves, but also the little details that really make these apps seamless for users, such as a filter bar and a way to share things with friends, we could have had users test a more efficient app from the beginning. I was surprised, and disappointed, that I didn’t take into account from the beginning how much easier it would be to have a menu bar. I originally thought that with so few options it wouldn’t be a huge necessity, but overall users felt that it was. If I had been given more time on the project I would have done usability testing more often and consistently throughout the project. However, since I knew the little time I had going in, I made sure this project was mostly focused on creating a baseline for a brand-new product, I knew it was just the beginning of what I wanted to create.