Case Study
AN ADD-ON FEATURE TO APPLE’S CAMERA APP
Apple Camera
New tag feature for Apple’s photo app that enables users to organize their pictures with a tag before they capture an image.
ROLE
UX RESEARCHER
UX/UI DESIGNER
TOOLS
FIGMA
Survey Monkey
SCOPE
Add on Feature
Duration
80 HOURS
Problem Statement
iPhone users that take a lot of pictures need an effective ways to organize their pictures so that it is easier to retrieve them in the future.
Solution
Apple camera tags is a new user control feature that helps organize pictures into existing folders by simply selecting a tag before you snap the picture.
Overview
According to Apple, there are 1 billion active iPhones that are being used world wide. In the US iPhones are especially popular with a 50% market share. iPhones have been embraced by both consumers and business markets. With such a large user base, the Camera app is widely used for capturing billions of images. The reality is that most of the pictures taken end up unorganized in a sea of images in the “recents” folder, making it difficult to retrieve a specific photo. While my journey began looking at the photos app, the research eventually led me to look at the camera app to address the pain points iPhone users were facing.
2. DEFINE
1. RESEARCH
3. DESIGN
4. TEST
RESEARCH
Componets
PRELIMINARY SURVEY
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
USER INTERVIEWS
Research Goals
Determine how user’s currently utilize Photos app.
Determine what tools or strategies user’s are lacking.
Understand the user’s overall satisfaction with iPhone Photo app.
Understand what pain points users currently face when trying to retrieve photos.
Competitive Analysis
I began by focusing my research on exploring the photo app market by conducting a competitive analysis comparing iPhones photo app and its main competitor Google Photos. This helped me better understand the features, controls and organizational capabilities currently available to users as I searched to identify the right problem to address.
Click to Enlarge
Opportunities
I see an opportunity to explore user control features to the existing smart folders that are lacking in both platforms. There are currently auto-generated smart folders (like screenshots, videos etc.) that bundle like files automatically, but I noticed the lack of user controls for those smart folders.
My competitive analysis lead me to wonder:
Why don’t these useful smart folders have more user control features?
Preliminary Survey
With a better understanding of the photo market and narrowing down the competition to Google and Apple I wanted to be sure and focus on the most popular app for greater market impact. To do this I sent out a short survey via Survey Monkey to help focus my research.
Survey Overview
Survey was sent via email and text to close contacts
The survey resulted in 28 participants
The survey resulted in support of my initial findings that indicated the popularity of the iPhone over Android in the US market.
Survey Results
Key Finding
96.43%
(27/28) of participants are iPhone users. Therefore, Focusing on iPhone users and Apple Photos App will reach a wider audience and have a greater impact.
Key Finding
64.28%
(18/28) of participants indicated that they take pictures for other reasons than personal use.
Key Finding
39.28%
(11/28) remained neutral or dissatisfied.
This seemingly large percentage indicates room for a need for improvement.
“Though it’s gotten better, retrieving old photos based on memory is a bit difficult.”
Survey Quote:
Taking what I learned from the survey, I continued my research with user interviews to learn more about iPhone users and their pain points.
User Interviews
5 iPhone users were interviewed to learn more about their current habits in the iPhone Photo app/camera app.
It included iPhone users that take pictures for other reasons other than personal use (ie work, hobbies etc)
80 data points were collected from the in-person interviews.
User Interviews Overview
Affinity Mapping
View Full Document
Interview Results
Participants are not fully aware of the available tools to search and organize their pictures. 5/5 users learned/discovered an existing feature during my interview while exploring the app.
Albums are not used much by participants because they take too much time and effort to use.
AI search tools are used and liked by the participants. All 5/5 users mentioned using one of the AI search tools available. (geolocation, face, face recognition, date sorting).
Searching by the time constraints (year, month) seem to be the most popular ways of searching for a photo.
All of the strategies participants mentioned are ways of narrowing down the quantity of photos in their search.
When prompted I observed 5/5 users being able to easily navigate the task of switching the camera settings to take a selfie.
Point of View Statement
Users that take photos need more controls to be able to organize their photos in order to find them faster.
How might we...
help users compartmentalize their pictures so that they are easier to find?
help users discover and use existing tools available to them in the photo app?
2. DEFINE
1. RESEARCH
Define
3. DESIGN
4. TEST
Componets
PERSONA
USER FLOW
Personas
The culmination of the preliminary research, competitive analysis and user interviews pointed to the users multitasking tendency and forgetfulness as a pain point that needed to be addressed. It also confirmed my hypothesis that the missing element and opportunity was in the use of automatic push notification and alarms for those busy times users simply forget.
One of the most important thingsI learned from the user interviews is that users are content and managing with the current tools available for organizing pictures, but during the research no one demonstrated a clear way to organize and find pictures. I personally know how it feels to not locate a certain picture and I feel that adding more user controls to existing features will improve the users picture photo app experience.
Building Empathy
Persona
Manuel• 43 Y/O Carpenter
Thorough • Hilarious • Compassionate
“It’s frustrating! There is no easy way to do find a picture.”
A successful small business owner in the central coast. Manuel began woodworking by doing any and all jobs that came his way. He is now fortunate enough to work on larger projects that even include celebrity homes. His success can be attributed to his work ethic and the quality of work that leads to person to person references. With his work load expanding he rely a lot on documenting his work to update his clients on the progress and his social media page
Biography
Manuel needs to find the correct pictures quickly on his phone.
He needs to be able to separate his small business photos from his personal pictures.
Core Needs
Has given up on organizing his pictures so he just doomscrolls until he finds what he is looking for.
Has considered buying a separate phone for work, but it is too expensive.
Behaviors
Task Flow
2. DEFINE
1. RESEARCH
3. DESIGN
4. TEST
Design
Componets
HI-FI WIREFRAMES
LO-FI WIREFRAMES
I anchored this portion of the design process in users like Manuel. I also began to think about my brother, who like Manuel is a small business owner that documents his cabinetry work on platforms like social media. I thought of the times my brother tried to show me some of his work, but scrolled endlessly until finally reaching the intended photo. These thoughts were the driving force of my designs.
Design
Wireframes
In order to add a feature to an existing brand like Apple with such a distinct aesthetic, I took the time to research Apple’s Design system. It was important to me to integrate the added feature as seamlessly as possible, so I grabbed my phone and studied the native Apple components and interactions in the Camera and Photos App. All this additional research helped me sketch some wireframes to address the users goal of finding pictures faster.
Camera Screen
Camera/Tag Selected Screen
“Inspo” Album
Albums Screen
Other Hi-Fi Screens
2. DEFINE
1. RESEARCH
3. DESIGN
4. TEST
Test
Componets
USABILITY TESTING
ITERATIONS
Methodology
A high-fidelity prototype was used in a moderated usability test via zoom. Participants shared their screen during the test so that I can observe their actions while completing tasks.
Participants
Study include 5 participants who are iPhone users .
Goals
Can the user identify the new added “tag” feature in the camera and Photos App?
We want to get some feedback on the new user flow of tagging a picture before taking it to see if the new design will help save users time and effort with existing “Albums” feature.
Usability Test
Task #1: To complete the task, take a picture with your camera and “tag” it in the “Inspo Album” BEFORE capturing the image.
Task #2: You want to verify that the picture was automatically placed in your “Inspo Album.” To complete this task, verify the image was organized in the “Inspo Album”.
Iteration #1
Iteration #2
Case Study Reflections
Constraints
The process of Designing with the constraints of such an established brand helped me focus on a creative solution for the identified user problem. Users who take pictures on an iPhone now have a feature that will help organize their pictures and encourage users to use the existing folder feature of an iPhone Photos app.
Given More Time
Given more time I would prioritize the user task of creating a new tag and how I would integrate it into the existing apple system. I was also surprised to learn that many users I interviewed were unaware of existing features in their photos app. This leads me to the desire of researching this insight with another round of interviews and iterations. Exploring ways to onboard new features and educate users of new features like tagging.