It is a family-focused digital tool that helps anyone stay motivated, organized, and worry-free when documenting their family history. Capture and share meaningful memories, major milestones, and unforgettable stories all in one place!
Family history is not just about the past, but it is also about the present and future. Memory Lane can help users understand their family history, ultimately enabling them to create deeper, more meaningful connections.
During the span of the pandemic, everyone around the globe realized that personal and emotional human connections are precious and almost essential - especially from family. Are there tools to help create, maintain, or strengthen family bonds?
Discover how documenting family histories can benefit individuals' emotional well-being; and create an MVP that assists users on their journey to documenting such rich and complex histories—making the process more approachable and fun!
After interviewing five participants, it can be assumed that those keen on documenting their family history find the overall process overwhelming and complex. Although most of the time when they engage in conversations about the past happens organically, they are motivated to take the necessary steps to be more proactive.
Existing tools and methods are time-consuming, scattered, and can be disruptive to a conversation / experience
All participants struggle to initiate conversations with family members—they don’t know where to start and feel unprepared
All participants believe that the effort is intimidating to do alone, and there must be a collaborative effort to recording their family stories in one secure location
All participants expressed that usually their parents or older family members initiate conversations about their lineage
All participants expressed a need for a tool to facilitate conversations, especially starting them
All participants have a collection of physical materials that are referenced or passed down (family photo albums, crests, etc.)
After analyzing the interview results and determining the key findings, I created the following personas of users who have the motivation to document their family history—they just are missing the right tool to help them out.
I assessed family-focused apps with features that would benefit users in the process of documenting family stories. My objectives were:
In addition to personas, I visualized two storylines in which Memory Lane would come in handy. I used this as reference points throughout the project to ensure that I was designing for the target range of needs
The tool can be designed to help the user in a variety of situations—providing positive experiences for the individual or their whole family.
With the personas’ frustrations and goals in mind, I ideated several features that users would expect from a family history documentation app. Below is a wireflow detailing how the user would navigate between each main feature.
The Timeline feature was designed to provide the most important information at a quick glance. If users wanted to dive deeper, they could easily do so.
Each story entry can be tagged with family members relevant to that story. They would receive notifications upon confirmation. This tagging system supports an important filtering / sorting option for the Timeline. It also promotes an engaging, collaborative environment.
Utilizing this universal design pattern allows for easy and digestible scanning through many content cards.
Categories: The cards are color-coded by the type of conversation topic
Pre-populated Story Entries: Each conversation starter comes with suggested talking points that are then pre-populated into the writing field for the story
Providing a standard family tree chart with intuitive functionality makes it an approachable task that users want to keep returning to.
Additional family member facts: Separate from the Family Timeline, these additional facts can give users a more focused lens on learning more about specific family members.
Some participants showed hesitation on screens where the action buttons were too close to the bottom or against darker backgrounds
The Conversation Starters needed better text hierarchy for easier scanning.
Some participants didn't know what to expect when hitting the "View more" button on the timeline. I changed the copy to be more direct.
There was also confusion on the difference between the plus icon on the main screen vs. the one in the navigation bar. I changed the icon in the navigation bar to help differentiate it from similar buttons.
Most participants questioned the difference between Conversation Starters and Story Prompts. I added brief descriptions to help guide users to the appropriate experience.
All participants conveyed that the conciseness of using the conversation starter cards would be beneficial for their needs—iniating conversations and having a collaborative experience.
Memory Lane is a helpful tool in a user’s journey to documenting their family history. The branding needs to create a warm, welcoming place where people feel empowered to create, store, and enrichen memorable stories.
Altering or avoiding familiar gestures and actions can easily disrupt a user’s experience. It’s better to include these gestures at first until testing proves them to be detrimental.
The simple question of “What did you expect to happen when you interacted with that element?” is both powerful and effective when conducting usability testing.
I would continue building out the other parts of the app:
