Innovating a Community-led Learning Tool for Photography.
FocoWalk is a community-driven educational tool for photographers to learn the various settings and lighting conditions of photos that were taken in the same area as them. Often, beginners and enthusiasts will go on guided photo walks to learn from mentors who have more experience than them. But what if users could simply do that on their phones guided by people who are equally as passionate about clicking photos as they are?
But first...
How did we get here?
The first step of designing a product to ensure its success; involves design thinking.
During this stage, I considered some questions:
What are some challenges we face in our daily lives?
How can those challenges be overcome with the help of an interactive medium?
The challenges I came up with were many. So I narrowed it down to those problems that still do not have a solution that successfully caters to the needs of the consumers. More specifically, I set out to create a tool that makes it easier for photographers to learn the art.
Photo Walks?! In this economy?
From lighting to weather conditions, these are all variables that most photographers take extensive steps to prepare for when taking photographs. However, I noticed that with the advancement in technology, these variables can now be collected along with the data that our images collect. Yet, there is still no learning tool that gathers that data meaningfully to aid users in their learning experience. Moreover, going out on photography walks may not always be an option for people, and is becoming an extreme rarity amidst the global pandemic.
The Tool.
With the help of FocoWalk, I intended for users to go to their desired location, or to a nearby location suggested by FocoWalk where more photographers have taken photos. After walking or travelling to their desired location they can view user-rated images taken by other photographers during similar weather and lighting conditions or they can choose to simply view photos clicked at that spot at various times.
Around the images, they will also be shown the settings and camera/lens that was used to take the photo, along with any notes that the photographer may have left with their image. Every technical term will come with a hover that explains its meaning and relevance in the use of the photograph.
By the end of the user's journey, they should leave feeling as though they had just taken part in a guided photo walk along with people all across the world, without having to interact with anyone face to face, and having learnt new ways to shoot photos.
The USERS behind the screen.
To verify my concept I needed to define my users and their pain points through personas. In order to do this, I surveyed 18 users who represented my target users: Beginner Photographers, Professional Photographers and Neurodivergent People.
Personna 1 - Jaydee
Personna 2 - Kiya
50% of the respondents felt that the product could add value to their life and 66.7% of them felt that the concept was compelling.
The survey reflected the following pain points for our target audience:
a) A need for a tool that guides them in clicking photos, with assistance on what angles, lighting conditions and values they need to set.
b) A platform where they can share their photos and learn from others instantaneously.
After compiling my survey findings I went on to create two user personas and used those to create my user experience journey that would ultimately decide the layout and functionality of the app.
Ideate. Ideate. Ideate.
After I had successfully defined my project goals and objectives and had a clearer picture of what my users wanted and expect, I was able to move forward and create a low-fidelity prototype based on my own concept, and the features that I felt were desired by the users.
The low-fidelity prototype was then given to a classmate for a heuristic review and for user testing.
Bringing it all together.
To bring the final prototype together, I gathered key advice from the heuristic review and found that the user testing gave me positive results in favour of my concept. I then collected multiple inspirations to create a mood board and formulate a style guide and brand theme for my project. The reason I waited so long to work on the design aspect of the project was because as a UX professional, I am more focussed on strategising the functionality of the app, and ensuring that the various features add to the learning curve of the users. In this stage I added another component to my prototype; an AI tips function that goes along with the results page.
Next Steps.
The design process never really ends until you bring your product to the market. For my next steps, I would like to add more visual appeal to the designs and include some of the features that were not possible for me to include initially. Moreover, I believe that in order to successfully drive users towards my product, I will need to conduct more thorough market research that goes beyond the scope of this project as part of my course.