Designing Utomea: Crafting Seamless User Experiences for Memory Organization
While working at QED42, I led a project to create Utomea, an app that makes managing photos easier. Utomea organizes your everyday moments into events based on where and when they happened. You can personalize these events by naming, rating, tagging, and categorizing them, making it easy to keep your precious memories safe and organized.
My primary design challenge was how can I create an intuitive and user-friendly system within the Utomea application that not only automates the organization of everyday moments based on location and time but also empowers users to effortlessly customize, enhance, and navigate their cherished memories.
TEAM & ROLE
As the sole UI/UX designer for Utomea, I closely collaborated with the management and development teams to create a streamlined and user-friendly product. My role involved hands-on participation in all aspects of the design process, ensuring a cohesive and intuitive user experience
WHAT I DID
I designed and administered a comprehensive questionnaire for the client. This approach allowed us to gather valuable insights, validate market research findings, and align our understanding with both company objectives and the specific needs of our target audience.
WHAT I DELIVERED
I delivered a comprehensive design package spanning two design sprints. This included meticulously crafted User Personas, detailed User Journeys, strategic Wireframes, a cohesive Brand Identity & Visual Style-guide, polished High-Fidelity Screen Designs, Prototypes for interactive visualization, ensuring a well-rounded and cohesive user experience.
RESULT
Utomea revolutionized memory management, offering users an intuitive platform to effortlessly organize and enhance their moments. The application’s user-friendly design simplified the process, ensuring a seamless and personalized experience for all.
THE BACKGROUND
Users and Audience
To identify the primary user demographics for the app, I conducted a thorough analysis of data collected from interview questionnaires. The key user groups that emerged include parents, as well as new mothers and travel enthusiasts.
DESIGN PROCESS
I applied Design Thinking approach to understand user preferences and needs in organizing and customizing everyday memories through Utomea.
I collaborated with key stakeholders to ideate practical solutions leveraging specific technologies. We validated our concepts through mid-fidelity prototypes, using the results to inform the creation of high-fidelity screen designs.
Research
Insights from interviews questionnaires
In our comprehensive user research, key stakeholders provided valuable insights into the Utomea project. Noteworthy findings include the product’s goal of automating event creation based on cellphone movements and the identification of three pivotal tasks — automated event creation, entry management, and event search/view functionality. Stakeholders shared their aspirations for the product, focusing on transitioning from proof of concept to basic testing and establishing long-term objectives for continuous feature addition, enhancing app automation, and expanding the user base. Competitive analysis highlighted existing competitors such as Day One and My Diary, with Utomea’s distinct value proposition centered on automatic event creation, addressing the desire for a hassle-free digital life record.
design goals
To focus on and improve the automatic event creation feature, and brainstorm innovative solutions to minimize user effort
Building on these findings, the design goal for Utomea is to prioritize and enhance the automatic event creation feature, streamlining user interactions and ensuring a seamless experience. The design will center around facilitating easy entry management and providing efficient event search/view functionality. Additionally, the goal is to align the product’s design with stakeholders’ aspirations, emphasizing a user-centric approach to drive engagement and satisfaction. Utomea aims to stand out in the market by delivering a user-friendly, automated solution that resonates with individuals seeking clarity in recalling and cherishing life’s meaningful events.
Ideation
Brainstormed the possible UX solutions
I looked at what the design needed and matched it with the business goals. After that, I came up with some ideas to improve the user experience. I showed these ideas to the important people, and we chose the best and most practical solution that works well for the majority of users.
Solutions
Auto Entry Feature — “Precision in Memories: Set your timeframe, let the app create events effortlessly.”
This feature allows users to define a specific time duration (30, 60, or 90 minutes), and if they stay in one place within this duration, the app automatically creates an event, ensuring precise and effortless memory capture.
Custom Creation of an Event — “Your Memory, Your Way: Easily craft past memories with a seamless manual creation process.”
This functionality empowers users to manually create events, offering a simple process from selecting a date range to rating an event. Whether reliving cherished moments or documenting significant milestones, the user has full control, ensuring a personalized and meaningful memory collection.
Auto Fetching Of Photos — “Time-Linked Memories: Create events based on dates, let your photos follow.”
When users create an event according to date selection, the app intelligently fetches photos from their device, seamlessly linking memories to specific dates for a richer and more organized experience.
Control over Verifying the Event — “Empowered Memory Curation: Your choice, your memories, your control.”
After the app automatically creates an event, users have the power to verify and decide whether to permanently store it. This control allows users to curate their memories, choosing which events to keep or delete, ensuring a personalized and meaningful collection.
Dynamic Filter & Search options — “Tailored Search: Find your memories effortlessly, exactly when you want.”
Users have the flexibility to search for any event using free-form text, date, location, or category, providing a dynamic and tailored search experience. This feature ensures that users can effortlessly locate and revisit specific memories based on their preferences.
Location Exclusion — “Refine Your Memories: Exclude locations that matter less, curate your unique journey.”
With a simple exclusion table, users can refine their memory collection by excluding specific addresses. This feature is designed to enhance the user’s ability to curate a unique and meaningful journey by removing less significant locations from their recorded events.
reflection
What have I learned from this engagement.
User-Centric Approach
The project's success hinges on a deep understanding of user needs and behaviors. Conducting comprehensive user research, including interviews and questionnaires, allowed for the identification of primary user demographics (parents, new mothers, travel enthusiasts) and their specific pain points in managing memories. This emphasis on user-centric design ensures that the final product resonates with its intended audience, leading to higher adoption rates and user satisfaction.
Innovative Solutions
The project demonstrates a commitment to innovation by introducing novel features like auto entry creation, custom event creation, and auto fetching of photos. These features not only streamline the user experience but also empower users to effortlessly organize and curate their memories. By constantly pushing the boundaries of what's possible, the design team can differentiate the product in a crowded market and stay ahead of competitors.
Empowerment through Control
Giving users control over their experience is essential for creating a sense of ownership and satisfaction. Utomea achieves this by allowing users to verify and curate their memories, as well as providing options for location exclusion. This level of customization ensures that users feel empowered to tailor the app to their unique preferences, leading to a more engaging and personalized experience.
Collaborative Process
Effective UI/UX design requires close collaboration with stakeholders, including management and development teams. By actively involving all stakeholders throughout the design process, the team can ensure alignment with company objectives and user needs. This collaborative approach fosters creativity, innovation, and ultimately, the successful delivery of a cohesive and user-friendly product.