Prism Camera
Be your own photographer
Prism is a solution to the lack of control you have anytime someone else takes a photo for you.
Sync with another person’s camera to control and see on your phone what they see on their camera.
With the ability to see what photos looks like before they’re taken you can instruct your photographer on how to best frame the shot while you take care of the rest.
Scenario
Jessica meets up with her friend David to take photos for her Instagram. She’s very particular about her photos and wants them to look exactly how she envisions them. She uses the Prism app to give her control over how her photos turn out.
Jessica and David both open the app to the main camera viewfinder in Solo Mode.
Here, they can use their own camera with access to manual controls and can toggle between standard photo, portrait, and looping video modes.
Jessica taps the hexagonal Photographer Finder button in the lowest right corner of her screen next to the gallery preview.
Jessica is now in Find a Photographer Mode where she can request nearby Prism users like David to link cameras with her.
The proximity map at the bottom of Jessica’s screen indicates to her who and where other users are relative to her. She uses this tool see who else is using this app and worth going up to for photography assistance.
Individuals can only see and be seen by others when their Discoverable toggle is set to ‘on.’
She taps on David’s user icon to get his help.
By tapping on David’s user icon, Jessica initiates a camera link request.
Her request shows up on his phone prompting him to accept or deny.
Since he has agreed to help her, he accepts her request by tapping on the green check button.
Their phones are now in Linked Mode. Jessica’s phone displays his camera controls along with what he sees through his viewfinder. They can quickly verify that their cameras are linked due to the shift to a blue interface.
David’s user icon is displayed on top indicating he is the active photographer. There are also now buttons to Unlink cameras or Switch whose phone is the active camera. While he is the photographer, all photos taken are only saved to Jessica’s phone.
She can control all aspects of the camera and by seeing through his viewfinder can direct him how to best frame the shot. After seeing how the photos came out, David wants some of his own and taps the Switch button.
Jessica switches into being the active photographer, which is indicated by the change in the user icon at the top of the screen.
Now, David can see what Jessica sees from her phone’s perspective with the capability to use the same camera controls through his own phone. He only needs to instruct her how to hold the camera to get the composition to his liking. At this point, any photos taken are only saved to David’s phone as Jessica is the photographer.
David ends the session by tapping the Unlink button. Both come out really satisfied with the shots they received since they were able to dictate how the shots of them were taken before the photos were actually captured.
Screener & Interviews
From my screener survey, I received answers from 39 respondents. I observed that the majority prefer to have photos taken of them when in a group setting with also most preferring to help others by taking photos for them. This showed me that Prism has a potential market for people that want to be either photographers for others, included in photos, or both.
From those respondents, I was able to conduct interviews with 5 individuals mixed between in-person and over video chat. Across the board participants complained about how they don’t trust people they ask to take photos to return photos that are desirable. The most common complaint was poor composition and framing by either cutting off important aspects and/or bad angles. There was a split between comfort on asking strangers for photos however most expressed that displeasure as to the uncertainty around whether they were being a potential bother.
Personas
User Stories
As a user, I want a way to see what my photos look like before they are taken to be sure that nothing is cut off and composition is right
As a user, I want to be able to see how I look like on camera so that I can adjust myself accordingly
As a user, I want a way to easily find people that are willing to take photos for me so that I don’t bother the wrong people
As a user, I want to be able to take many photos in quick succession so that I do not miss the perfect shot
As a user, I want photos to be captured in high quality and ready for editing and posting on social media
As a user, I want to be able to have photos captured save to my phone so that I can keep them for use or viewing
As a user, I want to ensure that my photos are not saved to anyone else’s phone to preserve my privacy
As a user, I want my camera to be able to zoom in and out so that I can capture the right content in my photos
As a user, I want the option to use manual camera controls so that I can get photos to look exactly how I want them
As a user, I want the option to have my camera display a grid to assist my photo composition and framing
I created my personas as archetypes derived from the responses I received from the interviews I conducted and kept them in mind as I created the user stories. From the interviews I tracked trends in what participants expressed as their pain points that repeatedly came up during conversation, converted those into user stories, and focused on what features could be made to best address them.
User Flows & Wireframe Sketches
When planning out the design of Prism, I focused heavily on ensuring all features and interactions would make sense reflected across 2 devices simultaneously since the main functionality is dependent on 2 linked users. To achieve this, I incorporated 2 users in each user flow I created to explore at what points their inputs would connect. Then when I began sketching my wireframes, I organized them with the devices side by side on a vertical timeline to review how an action on one side would affect the other.
Challenges & Next Steps
The most challenging aspect of this project was designing a product that integrated 2 device inputs at the same time. I had to constantly think about how any change on one user’s interface could alter the experience the other user had especially when the app itself is already focused on switching perspective. This essentially doubled every design decision that I had to make throughout. There was also the limitation of not having prototyping software that could properly convey the that input of another user was what led to the on screen calls-to-action to display.
To expand on this product in the future, I would like to design a seamless way for users to select and easily verify who would receive the photos as they are being taken. Doing this would take into consideration the complexities of interacting with strangers, privacy, user error. While this feature was part of my original idea when ideating this product, I ultimately decided that it was not a core functionality that needed to be included on its first iteration.