Glyde

Reimagining how files, images, and docs are shared

See Prototype

Although sharing moments can be a beautiful thing, the process of doing so can be frustrating sometimes.

Challenge

Design a new file transfer app to help improve the user's experience while helping them find nearby people to send files or videos to.

Solution

  • Define an intuitive way for users to send and receive files from friends or people nearby
  • Design a new system where users can move files quickly and seamlessly.

Use Case

Role

Sending images, documents, etc. to yourself or someone else

UX/UI Designer

Time Constraint

Tools

4 weeks

Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

View Prototype

User Research Insights

Pain Points

  • Receiving conflicting information on the internet on going about solving this
  • Users transfer digital items without knowing if their data is safe
  • Inability to spend lots of time ping-ponging from their phone to their computer moving an item
  • Sometimes seeking support from family/friends is more work than helpful

Needs

  • 24/7 support
  • Easy to transfer files and other digital good back and forth reliably
  • Something that not everyone has to install to send and receive (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
  • Personalization - must be customizable to fit the users' needs

Summary

The main insights I've uncovered from my research is that our application must be:

  1. Easily accessible 24/7
  2. Very easy to use - 1 or 2 steps
  3. Provide fast data transfer for any age demographic

Design Process

You can't always tell how a project's design process will go, Glyde was certainly no different; I followed the 5 step design thinking process to have a solid reference point to where I was at during each stage of development while also remaining flexible enough that if at any point I needed to go back to a particular stage that I felt needed to be retooled

EMPATHIZE

Research

Through market research, competitive analysis, and user interviews, I set out to gain a deeper understanding of the market and the customers for data transfer apps.

In preparation to dive into my research, I first set some clear goals and created a research plan that would guide my research process.

  1. Understand the market trends in the digital data industry
  2. Identify the target market
  3. Learn about the current trends of data transfer and how it's being used to promote the sale of goods
  4. Understand the experiences people have when sending and receiving files from other users
  5. Discover the goals, needs, motivations, and pain points of consumers of similar apps

Market Research

I started with market research to understand the general market, consumer, and business trends in order to gain a fuller understanding of the market Glyde might be part of.

Consumer Trends

  • Larger file sizes are becoming more prevalent, which has led to efficient and faster transfer methods.
  • Users seem to prefer innovative ideas and relatability over price and quality.
  • 89% of people prefer to use mobile devices for moving videos or photos over computers.
  • Nearly all consumers are rightly worried about their data's security and privacy.

Demographics

  • In 2022, finding information and keeping up to date with events ranked highest in terms of the most important reasons for using the internet.
  • Data privacy: From 2019 to 2022, 82% more people want to keep their data private.
  • The file sharing market in 2022 is dramatically increasing with the use of more digital devices.

Use Cases

  • We live in a fast-paced society, so it would be nice to move files quickly and seamlessly.
  • It's fun!
  • For people who aren’t digitally inclined.
  • Finds nearby devices to share photos and files with, but you can also send to people using their email or phone instead.
  • Works like Bluetooth but faster.

Competitive Analysis

Provisional Personas

Using the insights gained from secondary research, I created provisional personas to quickly identify Glyde's potential users. These provisional personas helped set the criteria for my interview participants and would be validated through user interviews.

User Interviews & Key Findings

Now, it was time to validate these provisional personas through user interviews with the consumer base of similar apps. During these interviews, I asked open-ended questions to learn as much as I could about their experiences and identify what the user’s needs truly are.

I conducted interviews with 5 participants, about 15-20 minutes each.

Some questions asked during the interview:

  • Have you used any file transfer apps or software in the past? If so, what were your experiences with them?
  • How frequently do you transfer files between devices?
  • Do you prefer wireless methods (e.g., Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) or wired methods (e.g., USB, Ethernet) for file transfer?
  • What factors influence your decision on which app to use?
  • Tell me about your most recent experience moving digital files.
  • Tell me about how you typically discover new apps or methods for transferring.

After conducting these one-on-one sessions with the participants, I wanted to take all this new information gained and synthesize it to better understand who the users are.

Empathy Map

Using an empathy map, I synthesized all the information I gathered during the user interviews to uncover key insights that led to identifying Glyde's competitor target user group.

First, I started by categorizing my notes into the categories of Doing, Thinking-Feeling, Seeing, Hearing, Gains, and Pains to get an overall understanding of everything learned during my interviews with the different participants.

This helped me to uncover common patterns that led to key insights which would help me identify what our users’ needs truly are.

Tastes & Preferences

Many people discussed being influenced by being able to find something they like

Word of Mouth

Many people mentioned trying new things based on what other people say

Proximity

Some people expressed their preference for sharing things with people that are close

Pictures

People shared that images were one of the decisive factors when trying something new

So, what do these insights mean?
Here are the key insights I drew from these patterns and the users’ needs that I was now able to understand from those insights:

Insights

  1. People trust what other people have to say about something
  2. People want to share exciting things with their friends
  3. People prefer to move files directly to another app without traversing multiple steps

Needs

  1. A simple and easy to use for the elderly or less technically knowledgeable
  2. To know what kind of files the app can move
  3. To know what other people think about a new feature

DEFINE & IDEATE

Defining the Problems

With a grasp of each user type, I began contemplating the issues we aim to address. Drawing insights from the empathy map, I delved further by crafting Point-of-View (POV) statements and How Might We (HMW) questions. These tools guide my brainstorming process to gain a deeper understanding of the problems at hand.

Information Architecture

Site Map

Focusing on the prioritized solutions, I created a site map to help define the overall structure of the content on Glyde's conceptual app in a way that would be logical and easy to navigate for our user.

Task Flow

Next, I wanted to learn how the users would be interacting with the conceptual Glyde app. I started by identifying the key tasks users would be completing, based on their goals, and the key pages and detailed requirements that would help complete those tasks outlined in a UI Requirements document.

Using these key tasks identified based on user goals, I started to explore how they would interact with the app to complete these tasks by creating task flows.

PROTOTYPE & TEST

Building a Prototype

In order to make sure the design decisions I made in the lo-fi wireframes effectively help reach our project goals, I wanted to get to a point where I could test the design with real users.

Low Fidelity Wireframes

Taking what I’ve learned throughout my process to this point, I started to make decisions on how the content would be organized based on the project goals I want to meet.

Mid-Fidelity Wireframes

Taking the lo-fi wireframe sketches, I digitized them on Sketch and added just enough information for users to be able to navigate through the pages and complete tasks I would present to them during usability testing. These mid-fidelity wireframes would help my focus on what needed to be improved in terms of the functionality of my design.

BRANDING

Logo Design

Now that I knew what direction we were headed towards for their branding, I started the logo design process. I first started by brainstorming different ideas related to their keywords, and then starting sketching out different ideas for logos that would align with those attributes.

After sketching out a number of ideas, I chose the two that I thought would best represent Glyde's brand and digitized them to visualize which one I thought was the more successful version. I decided to move forward with the bird which I thought was more effective in expressing their brand attributes and more unique.

Style Tile

Now I worked on compiling everything together and defining the specific direction I will be taking for Glyde's branding. Each decision I made for the branding elements were based off of effectively communicating their theoretical brand attributes.

UI Kit

Using the style tile as a guide, I applied Glyde's branding to UI elements users wanted from the user interview to convey the brand personality though their app and created a UI Kit to help with the coherence of the design moving forward.

Final Prototypes

Incorporating visual elements in line with Glyde’s branding, I worked on the UI design of the app and created high fidelity wireframes.

View Final Prototype

Sign in Page

Home Page

File Transfer Page

Nearby Sharing Page

Profile Page

Notifications Page

Confirmation Page

Reflection & Next Steps

Summary 📜
Re-test 🔄
Design Handoff 🤝
Product Launch 🚀
Future Implementations 🔮

To summarize... 📜

I focused on the base functionality of the app by arranging the key components (such as nearby sharing and people) in logical order first. I think this method was really effective in quickly identifying initial roadblocks to our user’s goals in the design and to make sure that the overall layout of content itself is effective and functional. If I were to add revisions, I would: implement a feature where devices could touch for better ease-of-use.

Making sure everything works 🔄

After adding these revisions into my design and integrating visual elements, my goal now is to assess and validate these changes. I intend to observe whether any additional enhancements should be made based on the test results.

Sharing with the team 🤝

With a finalized version of the design, I would then present the final design to stakeholders and hand it off to developers to build the app.

IT'S DONE! Well almost... 🚀

With the completed design, I would be able to introduce their conceptual new branding and launch the app. However, at this stage revisions can still be made.

What the future holds 🔮

With the short timeframe of this project, I could only focus on the top prioritized features to meet project goals. However, I think there’s room to add more value and insight to the experience by implementing additional features.

Contact

pittman.matthew.750@gmail.com

AboutProjectsResume

© Matthew Pittman 2022