These projects were completed for the class IACT 370, Information Architecture under professor Eunki Chung alongside fellow UX designer Vanessa Jaber.
Project 1
Microinteractions
Designing for Legacy
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Reimagining the bookmarking and profile search functions.
How can we design experiences that allow us to remember deceased users and celebrities in a meaningful way?
Project 1
Microinteractions
Twitter is one of the largest social media platforms in the world, boasting over 336 million active users worldwide. We want to make it even better.
Despite the app's massive success as a global platform, we noticed a lack of organization with the bookmarking feature, released in 2018. In addition, there is a lack of search functionality within profiles.
The lack of organization and intuitive functionality for both means that in order to locate a specific tweet you want, whether it be in your personal bookmarks or by a specific user, you have to succumb to the infinite scroll which often results in frustration after not being able to find what you're looking for.
Bookmarks
Problems
• Lack of ability to sort or filter bookmarked tweets
• Infinite scrolling required to find any specific tweet
• Currently unavailable for the desktop version of the platform
• The only control given to the user is to clear all bookmarks
• The function is hidden to many users as it is placed under the "send/share" button of a tweet
Opportunties
• Display bookmark option underneath tweet instead of hiding it from the user
• Ability to sort bookmarks into user-created "collections"
• Ability to sort through and search bookmarks
• Ability to organize tweets that the user wants to revisit without requiring them to spend unnecessary time scrolling
Profile Search
Problems
• Currently, Twitter does not offer in-profile search functionality
• The current advanced search function exists only on the desktop version of Twitter, and is still not centered around a single user
• External search engines (i.e. Google) are more efficient when searching for specific tweets from a user
Bookmarks
Current State
Profile Search
Current State
Opportunties
• Adding a search icon within profiles for easy retrieval of tweets
• Ability to search by date, keyword, or tweets with media
• Desired tweets are able to be liked, retweeted, and/or bookmarked for future reference
• Keywords from search query are highlighted for easy viewing rather than bolded, which can be hard to see and even cause eye strain
Bookmarks
Ideal State
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Profile Search
Ideal State
Wireframes
Adding several different microinteractions within the bookmarking page will allow users to have more control over their bookmarks, which is currently the only way for a user to privately archive tweets.
We added search within bookmarks, the ability to curate unique collections of bookmarks, and sorting. Currently, the only option provided to the user with in the bookmarks page is to clear all tweets.
In addition, we moved the bookmarking function itself to the dashboard, visible on any tweet. This way, the function is not hidden from the user, and the user can immediately tell whether or not they've bookmarked this tweet before.
The user is able to decide where the bookmark goes right from the dashboard for easy access later.
If you want to search a specific user's profile, you can do so through the icon displayed on the top of the profile itself. From there, you can search the profile and filter your results in order to find what you're looking for. Results are highlighted instead of bolded for easy immediate recognition.
Final UI Mockups
View the Overflow here.
Project 2
Designing for Legacy
In 2016, journalist David Carr's Twitter account, left unused and unprotected after his death, was hacked by a spambot who tweeted to his over half a million followers.
We often think about what we will leave behind in this world once we're gone, whether it be property, physical items, photographs, or anything else we may have claimed as our possessions.
What we seem to forget about, however, is our digital footprint. Even if we can't touch it, everything we put online remains as a representation of who we are and what we stood for. Twitter is a particularly unique representation of its users; each tweet you make is its own thought, with its own ecosystem of conversations and thoughts surrounding it.
What happens to your tweets, your public thoughts, when you leave them? Well, currently, nothing.
Your family can ask Twitter to shut the account down completely, but if they don't do that your account remains open in its current state, making it vulnerable to hacking as is what happened with David Carr and countless others who don't have half a million followers but whose legacies are equally as important to be able to remember.
We want to help family, friends, and fans remember those who are gone while respecting and protecting that person's accounts, digital property, and legacy.
This is Amy Winehouse's verified, "memorialized" account.
It has not been active since 2013.
There is no indication of her passing, other than tweets made from the
account by her father and management team.
The same is true for the desktop version of Twitter.
State Diagrams
Mobile & Desktop View
Wireframes
Instead of a regular pinned
tweet, a memorial tweet is
displayed at the top of the
deceased user's profile.
The memorial tweet is created
by a contact set by the user
before their death, and allows
them the ability to upload 4
images in addition to their
memorial message.
After the legacy contact posts
the memorial tweet, they no
longer have access to the
account in order to preserve
the authenticity of the digital
property of the deceased.
The profile will also have an
additional subsection:
In Memoriam.
Users will be able to post
in memoriam tweets in order
to commemorate the life of
the deceased, and others will
be able to view the messages
posted by other users as a
catalog of positive events and
impactful memories.
Remembrance Tweet
In Memoriam Page
In addition to the remembrance tweet and in memoriam profile section, we added the option to download a PDF of a memorial booklet that the user could get printed on the desktop version of the app.
This booklet acts as a physical connection to the deceased and a tangible object to remember them by. It consists of word clouds of the user's account, their most popular tweets, and any interactions between the deceased and the user who downloaded the booklet in order to give them a personalized connection to the feature.
Memorial Booklet
Final UI Mockups
