You & Me
Design a photo collage app to boost genuine and engaging user engagement
OVERVIEW
6 min read
About the project
This UX case study was an innovative conceptual design of a "photo collage" app, where users can create a composite photograph together by rearranging or overlapping two photographs into a new image. The project goal is to create a genuine and engaging user experience on social media apps.
Tools: Sketch, Photoshop, Invision.
Team: Luna, Nan, Jinping.
My Contribution: User Research, Prototyping, Interaction Design.
Final Design
INTRODUCTION
Why did we start this project?
Have you noticed how people seem to repeat patterns on social media: giving "likes", leaving comments, shares, etc. Our team wants to set off and see if we can design a new and fun way for social media users to interact with each other, and this was how we came to this project.
ABOUT THIS CASE STUDY
I divided this case study into 4 parts to communicate my rationale.
.png)
1. PROBLEM
.png)
2. APPROACH
.png)
3. SOLUTION
.png)
4. LEARNINGS
1.PROBLEM
The hidden "like counts"
"Like counts" is one of the important user engagement metrics on social media. However, Instagram recently plans to hide the "like counts" on videos and photos in the feed, this new change is described
as: "we want your followers to focus on the photos you share, not how many likes your posts get."
Some Instagram users buy "fake followers" to make them looks more popular
Why does Instagram want to make a change? First, the misuse of user engagement metrics can break brand trust. Second, Instagram points out these user engagement metrics (e.g. "like counts") can put pressure on young people, making them feel self-conscious about what they post.
“How to create a more genuine and engaging experience to encourage users to focus more on the content itself as opposed to others' response?”
2. APPROACH THE PROBLEM
Exploring how people use social media
To address the question above, we interviewed four of our peers to understand how they use social media, I distilled their main characteristics and behavior into the following personas.
Influencers
-
Influencers are those who actively create and share content on the social platform. Their main goal is creating value by generating more followers or click counts.
Content Consumers
-
Content consumers are identified as those who are actively using social platforms but rarely create any contents or respond to the content they are exposed to.
User Analysis
To have a deep understanding of the problem, we conducted 6 user interviews. As for the user survey, since we only have 3 people in the team, it's hard for us to collect enough data that was statistically significant, so we took a similar type of survey results from other sources for the reference.
Source: "How People Interact on Social Media" by The Manifest
Survey Results
-
Only 24% of people share their own content. Nearly half (48%) of people only interact with other people's content without sharing anything.
-
Images are the most common type(69%) of the content that people prefer to post on social media.
.png)
Interview Quotes
-
“Sometimes I don't know if people actually care about what I post, I'd rather have one genuine comment than 50 likes.”
-
“I feel left out if my Ins posts don't receive enough comments, I just delete them immediately."
.png)
.png)
Research Insights
-
Users are seeking recognition and approval on social media rather than mere numbers(e.g. likes count).
-
Users become self-conscious and feel left out about their post if the measurement is not in their favor.
-
Many social media users are coming to view social networks as sources of content(48%) rather than provide active contributions (24%).
Research Synthesis
-
Overall, only 24% of users provide active contributions to social media. 48% of the "silent users" are seeing social media as sources of content rather than platforms that require active contributions.
-
To create a genuine and engaging experience for social media, we should engage more "silent users" in content contributions, and this was how we came to our solution: collaborative content creation.
Design Rationale
3. SOLUTION
Conceptual design
Based on research insights, to create a better sense of connection and recognition for the "silent users",
we designed a "photo collage" app that enables users to create photo collages collaboratively.
1. User "A" uploads a photo to the app and waiting for others to match.
2. User "B" uploads another photo and work
with user "A" to create a brand new "photo collage" by merging two photos together.
Users can unleash their creativity and share brilliant ideas on this app, the idea is to help those "slient users" form a deep sense of connection and engage them through collaborative content creation.
Story Of Distant Lovers
Eiffel Tower In Day And Dawn
Summer/Winter White House
AE 86
Information Architecture
I created the following wireframe to explain the information architecture for this app.
.png)
Style Guide
MVP Design
1. Homepage: View the photo collages gallery, you can choose to find a photo match or take a photo for others to match.
View category
Home Page
Find/take a photo to match
2. Find a photo to match: Users can view the photos that are waiting to be matched, choose the one you like and publish the new photo collage.
View the "waiting to match" list
Take/upload a photo
Match and publish the photo collage
3. Take a photo for others to match: Users can take a new photo/upload a photo from the local album, corp it to half size, send it to "photo match pool" and wait for other users to match.
Take a new photo
Upload from local album
Send to the photo pool
4. Personal Page: Users can check the personal info such as photo match history, activities, my gallery, and notifications.
Personal Page
My Gallery
Notifications
Interactive Prototype
4. Reflections
As I mentioned in this case study, hiding user engagement metrics is a passive way to address the user engagement issue, as it simply goes against human nature: seeking approval and recognition.
The root cause of the engagement issue on social media is that more users are seeing social media as a source of content rather than a place to speak out their minds. If social media companies can convert the "ego-driven content mode" into "engaging content creation mode", a more genuine experience can be created where users can focus more on the content itself as opposed to the fake or mindless response.
Reference:
Instagram hides Like counts in leaked design prototype - Techcrunch.com
How People Interact on Social Media in 2019 - themanifest.com
Top 10 Reasons for Using Social Media - Olivia Valentine