GR3 - Paper Prototyping

(Note: We have tentatively changed our name to "Photo Circles" to emphasize the idea of circles of friends and de-emphasize the concept of albums, because it seems to be the biggest learnability issue that the users have. The name may be changed again.)

Prototype photos

Briefing

We introduced Spotlight to our users, telling them that it is a collaborative photo sharing site. We explained that this is a social site that can be used to share photos, similar to Facebook because people can view photos and comment on them. However, we informed the user that our site is different because it has the added benefit that friends can be allowed to add, delete, or rearrange photos in addition to just viewing the photos. We described that our site is similar to Google Docs, but for photos, where the owner of a circle can allow contributions from their friends.

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Finally, the last suggestion that was given to use was to allow people to create profiles for their accounts, and to allow users to view others' profiles. This gave us the idea to show your connections to other users when you click on their usernames.

Prototype iteration

The first prototype was a sketch of our "simplistic design". It worked well for the basic functions such as viewing photos and creating circles, but we learned from the users' suggestions to improve the minor details. The biggest change was for the "create new circle" page. Users requested a better suggestion interaction when adding individual members, so we changed the wording of instructions to suggest that it is also possible to add existing groups, which will be expanded to individual members upon selection. Another change was on the front page, where users suggested that a Facebook style news feed may work better. Therefore we added that element on the right side banner of front page. Lastly, we made minor changes on the circle/upload photo page to show a persistent box that will accept dragging actions, instead of just at the background.