Redesigning the photo feature of Hyves

Abstract

In the five years that Hyves exists it has grown to be the biggest social network site in the Netherlands with over 9 million members. One of the most used parts of the site concerns the uploading, editing and sharing of photos. At the moment more than 3 billion photos are stored on Hyves and 1 million more are uploaded each day. This project focused on gaining insights into the way photos are uploaded, edited and shared on Hyves currently and the experience users of Hyves have while doing this. Furthermore, more was found out about the reasons of people for taking, editing and sharing photos and their wishes concerning an application that supports one or more aspects of this process. To gain these insights six participants were asked to show the way they use the Hyves photo feature. Next to this seven participants were interviewed about their reasons for taking photos, what are important aspects of these photos and how and with whom photos are shared. One of the things that became evident in research was that users like telling stories when showing photos to others in real life (e.g. on a laptop). It was felt by participants that this could not really be done when showing photos to others online (by placing them on Hyves). It was decided to make a redesign for the photo feature of Hyves focusing on telling stories. More was found out about what would enable users to tell stories online, by organizing a creative session and creating scenarios. A redesign was made of the photo feature, which enables users to share photos with specific friends. Groups of contacts can be made to make selecting friends easy and quick. Next to this, shared albums can be created to which specific friends can add photos as well. Photos in albums can be used to create stories. Stories can be created by using text balloons and frames in several shapes into which photos can be placed. Next to this, details in photos can be emphasized by adding little messages (notes) to a photo. Stories can be viewed by the creator of the story and visitors. To view a story a separate layer is placed on top of the photo specific page. When clicking on a photo while viewing a story, users can respond to a photo in the story by placing a comment or respect.