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| After logging into PhotoBook, Charles clicks on the “Friends” tab and scrolls through the list. He comes across Jennifer’s name and nervously decides to tap on the gorgeous thumbnail of her to see her photos. |
| Charles scrolls through the photos Jennifer is in and comes across a photo with a very worrisome caption, so he pinches on the photo to take a closer look. |
| He sees Brian with Jennifer and gets very worried. He confirms that it is really Brian noticing that Brian’s name in the “In this photo” section. |
| Charles wants to see all photos of Jennifer and Brian together so he can confirm his horrifying suspicions, so he first clicks Back to see photos of Jennifer. |
| Then he taps on “All Albums” and taps on the search field. He then taps on the “Tagged” filter. Finally, he enters Jennifer and Brian (which are helpfully autocompleted). He finds 13 albums that contain photos of Jennifer and Brian (note that only certain photos in each displayed album contain Jennifer and Brian, and perhaps only a subset of those photos contain them together). |
| Charles scrolls through the photos to find photos that might contain Brian and Jennifer together. (Note that, instead of visually looking through the thumbnails, he could have also chosen to search within the album.) He finds a worrisome photo with the caption “Sledding” and taps to take a closer look. |
| Charles sees Brian and Jennifer together and is outraged. He opens the share menu and chooses “Email.” |
| The email composition box appears over the photo, and Charles types an angry email to his friend Donovan to try to get some answers. The incriminating photo is automatically attached. |
Advantages
Learnability: Overall, this design presents a very learnable interface. First, it follows the metaphor of the physical album quite closely; PhotoBook initially displays many albums. Then, the user can tap or pinch on album to open it. Finally, the user can tap or pinch on a photo to pull it out of the album to take a closer look. It is also externally consistent; it is similar to the interfaces of many other photo organizing applications with which users are likely familiar, including iPhoto, the iPad’s “Photos” app, and Facebook’s website. Additionally, it uses standard interface widgets found throughout other iPad applications. Finally, although the photo browsing and searching experience is divided into two views - Album view and Photo List view - these views behave in the same manner. Specifically, the user can tap and pinch on thumbnails to open them in either view, and the user can filter the displayed thumbnails using the same filter interface.
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Error prevention and correction: As noted above, it is rare for users to be able to make a serious error in PhotoBook. Navigation errors, however, may be common when the user is searching for a particular photo and has to look through several albums. While it is easy to correct this error by using the “Back” button, the other designs mentioned below make the error less likely and faster to recover from. Specifically, the user does not need to “open” albums in the Side-scroll design (Design 2), and thus will not open the wrong album by mistake. In design 3, opening an album is less of a commitment than in this design, since instead of being moved to an entirely separate page, some other albums remain visible when an album is opened, and an album can be closed by simply tapping anywhere outside the album.
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Design 3
Storyboard
Charles has downloaded Photobook, and wants to browse photos. He opens the app and the Facebook login page opens. Charles already has a Facebook account, and enters his login details.
After loading, the interface displays all albums by date. Charles doesn't want to see all albums though, he wants to see the photos of Jennifer, his crush. He taps on the "Friends" tab. 
The friends page shows the name and profile picture of his Facebook friends. He scrolls to Jennifer's photo, and taps it. The photo is selected, and below it opens up all photos that Jennifer has been tagged in. It opens in a style similar to folders on the home screen of the iPad. He scrolls through these photos, and notices one where Jennifer and his friend Brian seem to be very close in. Intrigued, Charles taps the photo.
The photo viewing interface comes up. Sure enough, it is Jennifer and Brian, and there is definitely something more than just a friendship! Brian was one of Charles' best friends, but they haven't talked in a while. Could this be the reason that Brian has been avoiding him? Charles must find out. He taps the "Back" button to find out more.
Charles will search to find photos that contain both Jennifer and Brian. He taps the search box and it expands and opens the search mode.
Charles notes that "Tags" is selected as the search mode above the keyboard. This is what he wants, so he begins to type Jennifer and Brian's names. As he types, a popover appears with possible friend matches from Charle's friends list. As he types, search results begin to appear. He dismisses the keyboard to see the search results better.
Charles can quickly see all matching photos, sorted by date and album. If an album contains many matching photos, the interface scrolls horizontally within the album. Charles sees that their relationship must have started over Christmas break (of course! They are both from Chicago). Charles sees that Jennifer and Brian went on a steamy sledding date, and opens a particularly incriminating photo.
Charles can't believe what he is seeing. He wants to show the photo to Donovan, so he taps "Share" and then taps "Email."
A compose-email window appears, where Charles types his message. Maybe Donovan knows what's up.
Albums/Friends Page
On this interface, a grid of albums (or friends) is shown. Clicking on a photoset opens it in the same style that the iPad uses for folders on the home screen. Close the photoset by tapping outside of the opened portion.
This interface should be easily learned, because it uses metaphors the user is already familiar with.
It is efficient for browsing through large sets of albums, which each contains a large set of photos. The grid formation allows as many photosets or photos to be displayed as possible. You can quickly open and close a photoset without navigating screens.
Because the user is not creating data, there aren’t many errors they can make. If the user accidentally taps on a photoset or photo that they don’t want to browse, they can quickly go back.
Search
Search is the other main mode of PhotoBook (besides browsing). Switching to search is highly visible. The familiar search field is at the top of every page. Tapping it opens the search field, with three search modes shown above the keyboard.
The three search modes are “Tags”, “Title”, and “Uploader”. They can only search by one term at a time. This is a feature limitation, but makes the interface less complicated and easier to learn.
Search
Search is the other main mode of PhotoBook (besides browsing). Switching to search is highly visible. The familiar search field is at the top of every page. Tapping it opens the search field, with three search modes shown above the keyboard.
The three search modes are “Tags”, “Title”, and “Uploader”. They can only search by one term at a time. This is a feature limitation, but makes the interface less complicated and easier to learn. When "Tags" or "Uploader" are selected, the user is searching for a friend's name. A popover appears that shows possible matches from the friends list, to make the interface more efficient.
Photo Viewer
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Albums/Friends Page
On this interface, a grid of albums (or friends) is shown. Clicking on a photoset opens it in the same style that the iPad uses for folders on the home screen. Close the photoset by tapping outside of the opened portion.
This interface should be easily learned, because it uses metaphors the user is already familiar with.
It is efficient for browsing through large sets of albums, which each contains a large set of photos. The grid formation allows as many photosets or photos to be displayed as possible. You can quickly open and close a photoset without navigating screens.
Because the user is not creating data, there aren’t many errors they can make. If the user accidentally taps on a photoset or photo that they don’t want to browse, they can quickly go back.
Search
Search is the other main mode of PhotoBook (besides browsing). Switching to search is highly visible. The familiar search field is at the top of every page. Tapping it opens the search field, with three search modes shown above the keyboard.
The three search modes are “Tags”, “Title”, and “Uploader”. They can only search by one term at a time. This is a feature limitation, but makes the interface less complicated and easier to learn.
Search
Search is the other main mode of PhotoBook (besides browsing). Switching to search is highly visible. The familiar search field is at the top of every page. Tapping it opens the search field, with three search modes shown above the keyboard.
The three search modes are “Tags”, “Title”, and “Uploader”. They can only search by one term at a time. This is a feature limitation, but makes the interface less complicated and easier to learn. When "Tags" or "Uploader" are selected, the user is searching for a friend's name. A popover appears that shows possible matches from the friends list, to make the interface more efficient.
Photo Viewer
The PhotoViewer appears and covers the rest of the interface. This is so that the image gets as much screen real estate as possible. There are also translucent overlays for accessing features and displaying photo information. Tapping the photo makes the overlays appear and disappear, as is common in many iPad apps. The photo information is displayed at the bottom (an optional caption, who is tagged, the uploader, and the upload date). At the top is a button to exit the photo viewer. There is also a button to share the photo. A popover appears to show the sharing options (either download, email, or post the photo to Twitter). Otherwise, each option couldn't fit on the interface and symbols would be used instead (which are harder to learn). The popover adds another tap to each share, which sacrifices efficiency. If a user wants to download all photos in an album, they can do that from the album view.
Storyboard
| Charles has downloaded Photobook, and wants to browse photos. He opens the app and the Facebook login page opens. Charles already has a Facebook account, and enters his login details. |
| After loading, the interface displays all albums by date. Charles doesn't want to see all albums though, he wants to see the photos of Jennifer, his crush. He taps on the "Friends" tab. |
| The friends page shows the name and profile picture of his Facebook friends. He scrolls to Jennifer's photo, and taps it. The photo is selected, and below it opens up all photos that Jennifer has been tagged in. It opens in a style similar to folders on the home screen of the iPad. He scrolls through these photos, and notices one where Jennifer and his friend Brian seem to be very close in. Intrigued, Charles taps the photo. |
| The photo viewing interface comes up. Sure enough, it is Jennifer and Brian, and there is definitely something more than just a friendship! Brian was one of Charles' best friends, but they haven't talked in a while. Could this be the reason that Brian has been avoiding him? Charles must find out. He taps the "Back" button to find out more. |
| Charles will search to find photos that contain both Jennifer and Brian. He taps the search box and it expands and opens the search mode. |
| Charles notes that "Tags" is selected as the search mode above the keyboard. This is what he wants, so he begins to type Jennifer and Brian's names. As he types, a popover appears with possible friend matches from Charle's friends list. As he types, search results begin to appear. He dismisses the keyboard to see the search results better. |
| Charles can quickly see all matching photos, sorted by date and album. If an album contains many matching photos, the interface scrolls horizontally within the album. Charles sees that their relationship must have started over Christmas break (of course! They are both from Chicago). Charles sees that Jennifer and Brian went on a steamy sledding date, and opens a particularly incriminating photo. |
| Charles can't believe what he is seeing. He wants to show the photo to Donovan, so he taps "Share" and then taps "Email." |
| A compose-email window appears, where Charles types his message. Maybe Donovan knows what's up. |