Anthology - A Platform for Photographers
Role: UX Designer
Duration: 3 Weeks | April - May 2020
We came to Anthology, conceived in 2019, with the mandate to design their web presence. There would be a corresponding mobile app who’s design would be done by development company, Kiwitech.
We would spend 3 weeks in our design system with the end goal of an MVP high fidelity mock up.
Our team of 4 was ready for the challenge. It would demand all of our combined skills of communication, visual and graphic design and mutual respect for each other and this project.
research
Anthology had been created in hypotheticals: our client wanted to create a new social platform for photographers of all experience levels to connect, share, network, sell, and find job opportunities,
But had they validated this use case? The short answer is no. So, we dove right into understanding the space of professional and enthusiast photographers and their challenges in the current digital space.
We utilized long form user interviews with both enthusiast and professional photographers to understand their work flows, their connection to the photography community, the tools they use and where those tools fall short .
“I have a personal website - bought the domain so the best pictures from the best events are there.”
—Paul, Professional Photographer
“I appreciate. being exposed to other artists to agin some kind of creative inspiration .”
— Whit, Enthusiast Photographer
“Mostly when I plan to go places with my friends I take photos in bulk .”
— Taylor, Enthusiast Photographer
“It's really challenging to be able to figure out how to bring in quality clients”
— Emily, Professional Photographer
We’re building a site geared towards photographers so we needed to see what the landscape was for those photographers in all of their facets: Social, professional, personal, educational, as well as the gauge the use case for the tools that are currently on the market.
We completed a competitive matrix for the businesses that service the industry and where we think Anthology would place in that field from social media to job boards and from mass appeal to niche.
How might we host both professionals and hobbyists and utilize the platform to enhance their photography skills, build a photography community to share resources, engage in professional networks as well as to buy and sell photography digitally and physically?
features
Anthology came to us with a specific goal of what types of features their product would house. With our additional user research we refined that list to the following which we would ideate in our design studio:
Explore/Map Feature
Detailed Upload Feature
Portfolio Feature
Marketplace Feature
These four features would be our focus of execution and testing throughout this sprint.
Design studio and consensus low fidelity mock up of Anthology’s landing page
design
As a constant reminder of who we will be building for we utilized the following personas that were built on responses from our user interviews.
Johnny the professional and Christina the enthusiast
These two represent the two ends of our user base and remind us of the wide range of needs for which we will have to build.
Anthology only works if the whole spectrum is interested - Professionals need a plae to showcase their work, connect with potential employers and have amateurs be able to share and connect their content like a social media site. Amateurs need a space that feels familiar but catered to their niche hobby.
When thinking of the aesthetic for Anthology, we wanted to ensure the focus always comes back to the photograph. We kept the main colors of the site white and black with grays and a muted pink to highlight buttons.
product
Welcome to Anthology
Anthology’s landing page would serve as a welcome to all visitors and account holders.
We gave space for a large hero image where photographers who used the site would be highlighted and credited, while also sharing the feature set of what Anthology had to offer.
Explore with Anthology
Our Explore page highlights the search and map feature of Anthology allowing users to search their areas or areas of interest to find popular places to take photos. Users can interact with this map similar to Google by dragging and manual searching.
This feature proved familiar to user, though we could not prototype it to full functionality which discouraged users during usability testing.
This feature remains the heart of how users will interact with Anthology and find images, locations and artists they find inspiring.
Anthology Profiles
We wanted to ensure a full profile and buttons for interactions and access to professional photographers via Anthology.
Here, professionals will be able to showcase their work with categories of work as well as link to their portfolio which would include the best of their work.
There is opportunity to follow their favorite artists and shop for their work in their personal marketplace.
This offers users the familiarity of a social media application with a focus on their hobby.
Anthology Marketplace
This personal marketplace would show all art available for purchase from a photographer. Photographers themselves would have the option of licensing photos for digital use or to sell prints for individual customers.
Professionals would have the opportunity to sell only what they felt comfortable selling in the form of their choosing
testing
As we conducted usability tests from mid fidelity to high fidelity, we received feedback on some of our basic functionality. We took the successes and challenges from that round to testing to building our high fidelity screens.
Reorganizing the map filter features to guide users to their location
Further defining hot spots on our map/explore page
Limiting the name users are allowed to create to a single user name
Consolidating editing feature on the profile pages to narrow the scope of editing
Mid Fidelity Landing Page
High Fidelity Landing Page
next steps
As we went through our second round of usability testing on our high fidelity screens we received feed back that was positive and assuring that we had built not only a product featuring our MVP features, but we also built a product that users would be in encouraged to join and immerse themselves in.
Next Steps:
Designing a portfolio page with flip book animations
Expand on the uploading feature making it more flexible
Define hotspot further and create additional icons
Consider the hierarchy of the profile interactions
Our team was privileged to work with Anthology and their founders on this project and were excited by their reactions from the work we were able to complete in this sprint.