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Instead of discovering Insta-worthy places via different geotags, which could be limiting and outdated, the Instagroan community focuses on fluid, self-reported data from users to share these exclusive insiders’ spots.
Aside from its useful features, Instagroan is a witty way to gently mock the seemingly casual blogger snaps you see on Instagram, and to honor the tirelessly frustrated husband/boyfriend/best friend behind the camera.
Instagroan was built with jQuery Mobile and a lot of giggles (and perhaps tears).
Instagram Husbands - “The husband of a blogger or online influencer who takes photographs for his spouse and is tolerant of the constant interruptions that come along with the blogging business.”
I’ve consolidated the problems with the current ways out there to look for insta-worthy places.
Lots of great photography spots are temporal/seasonal, so these locations can’t be accessible via platforms like Google Maps, Yelp or TripAdvisor, which are for more permanent. sites.
The first searches that come out of any search engine would be the most popular tourist attractions, which could lack uniqueness and indivisuality.
Trip planning could be a hassle when it comes to researching for unique places to shoot in a new city. Travelers have to rely on blog posts or curated lists of tourist attractions.
Create an app that solves these issues! Also to honor all of the hardworking Instagram Husbands.
Photography enthusiasts
Tourists
Millennials
Three personas based on the three types of target audience
27 / San Francisco, CA / Interior Designer
Eza is a designer and photo enthusiast. She likes to shoot landscape, architecture and beautiful interiors.
Pain point: When doing travel planning, it takes a long time for Eza to find places that aren't touristy and that locals would go to.
27 / Taipei, Taiwan / Fashion Photographer
Koan is a professional fashion photographer and an Instagram star. He likes to shoot portraits and architecture.
Pain point: Often needing very clean backgrounds and settings that tell a story, Koan has trouble finding unique artistic places for his photoshoots.
22 / San Francisco, CA / UX Designer
Tinnei is a designer living in San Francisco. She is also an engineer and artist who is always seeking new inspirations for her art and designs.
Pain point: Tinnei likes to study where people go. She's interested in learning where people go for inspirations but doesn't have a way to know how.
I interviewed Eza, the primary persona, to see what her process is like when she usually plans for a photography outing when on a trip. She showed me her step-by-step research/planning process on how she finds cute insta-worthy places to go take photos at via Instagram.
She first skims through all recent posts in the location hashtag and looks for photos that interest her. She will then open up the photographer's profile and look for more interesting places through their individual profiles in hopes of finding a picturesque hidden gem that only locals would know. She will then bookmark the location she sees tagged in those photos, and use them for her own trip.
Log-in
Sign-up
Onboarding
Map Page
Map Notification
List Page
Profile Page
Add Page
I decided to proceed with proposal 02 for the final UI design after surveying and testing out with a handful of potential users.
Sign in to Instagroan and join the Instagroan community to discover more and more Instagram Husbands and places to take photos.
Users are able to filter through all the Instagram Husbands to quickly find the type that they want. Filters include gender, location, and a fun and sarcastic obnoxious level.
Tap on any Instagram Husband icon on the map (or on the list view) and see all the details about them, including where they appeared on the map previously, how obnoxious they were, and who they're taking photos of.
If you spot an Instagram Husband in the wild, go ahead and pin them on the map and add their details. After adding, other users will be able to follow his/her photo journey too.
Instagram Husbands are always on the run and changing as their partner probably has different photo requests for them all the time. Users are able to edit existing data and keep them most up-to-date.
I ran into quite a few challenges during the process. Because this was a fully-coded project, I had to really switch mindset and start thinking from a more technical point of view.
This was the first time I coded an application from scratch instead of a website, so the framework of thinking definitely needed to shift from a desktop to something that you hold in your hands. This was also the first time I’ve used jQuery Mobile and incorporating different APIs into my work, so I’d say the challenge was huge and the suffer was real but hey, I learned a lot!
