A social network for iPhone artistry

Moxie lets you discover and reuse anyone's custom photo filters on your own photos.

Final design - After user testing, we found that people preferred displaying layers horizontally instead.

We needed to test our assumptions that people would understand the idea of stacking layers on top of each other, so we put together a quick paper prototype of the photo editing process. We showed the prototype to a couple people and although they did in fact understand the concept of layering images on top of each other, there was some confusion about how to select a layer and dismiss the sidebar.

With our assumptions about the "layer stacking" mental model validated we decided to move forward with the stacking design and continue testing the rest of the UI. Since a paper prototype lacks a lot of subtle affordances and interactive queues, our next step was to create an actual interface that people could freely interact with. After we had a working native iOS prototype, we gathered some more people and conducted some more user tests to see if the overall editing flow made sense.

We found that:

• Displaying layers horizontally, instead of stacking them vertically, made more sense to people.
• People had trouble editing and managing layers (selecting, hiding and moving them around).
• People were confused by the idea of blending layers together.

The solution: Instead of a small vertical column, we updated the layers to display horizontally at the bottom of the screen. Not only did this make the UI more ergonomically friendly (because it gave people more access to edit the layers with their thumb), but also gave us more screen real estate to enlarge the thumbnails themselves.

Since people were having troubles managing layers, we made the selection state more apparent and provided more explicit affordances by labeling buttons and creating more contrast for interactive elements.

To simplify the blending mode process, we de-emphasized the idea of manually choosing a blending mode and focused on what the image will look like when you select the different settings. We also added it to the end of the “add new layer” process, so it would feel more like finalizing the process.

Being able to toggle layers on and off lets you see how they affect the canvas.

Discover and follow other Moxie artists. See their art in a personalized feed.

Profiles help people keep track of who they're following as well as their favorite artwork.

See updates about who's following you and who has favorited your artwork.

The solution: We decided to prioritize our efforts on creating a social network. As we started discussing and working through the various scenarios and flows we realized that building a network was a lot more involved than just a standalone photo app!

We found a third-party platform called Parse that provided a lot of existing network conventions from a commenting system to the ability to follow others.

Our main priority was growing the network and connecting users with each other and letting them use the app as a source of inspiration for their own photo art. We were going to focus on giving people the ability to:

• Create a profile (so they would have a presence in the network)
• Follow each other (so they could have a dedicated “feed” of curated artwork)
• Discover what other people have created (To showcase their own photo art and act as a source of inspiration)

Originally, free users were encouraged to sign up for an account to get the full features of the app.

We removed the signup banners within the app and created an intro flow that forced people to login to the app.

Conversions increased from around 5% to 40%.

We experienced an increase in signups after we required authentication to use the app.

Since we prioritized building a network, our key performance indicator was focused on growth. We allowed people to create photos and post anonymously, so we focused on converting users within the app itself. We added signup screens throughout the app and experimented with different versions and motivations to convert people. Our idea was to provide enough value behind an authenticated account that people would want to sign up and unlock certain features. For example, users couldn't save their raw filters or interact with other Moxie artists without being logged in.

After a couple weeks we were still only seeing around a 23% signup rate. We started asking ourselves what value anonymous users actually provided and if we could afford alienating people who were unwilling to sign up. Revisiting our growth metric we decided that all users had to sign up to use the app. As we expected, some people were not pleased with the change. Nevertheless, our conversion rate quickly jumped to almost 40%.