Snapfish: Sharing an Album Design Process
Originally, the sharing process was all contained in a small panel to the right of the photos. Users typed in email addresses or chose them from a list of past "invitees". The resulting list of users was displayed in a small list box, and users finished the action by clicking on a button right on the panel. A pop-up box confirmed the action. In theory, it might seem like a good idea to have the sharing functionality always available next to the photos. In practice, users had a great deal of difficulty with the drop-down list model, and the narrow space meant that email addresses were cut off, so checking accuracy was very difficult. Users finished the process uncertain about what action had actually been performed.	Old sharing panel
Using all the space on the right for the sharing process also meant that functions like editing, deleting, and uploading photos were shunted off to other areas. This created a very inconsistent model for interacting with photos - users had to hunt around the page for all the things that were possible to do. On the original "Shoebox" page, there were 5 big yellow buttons, and 4 of them popped up an error dialog if the user pressed them without taking another action first. In order to solve these problems, I mapped out new flows for sharing and moving photos that moved specific functionality off the main page and gave enough space for each step of the process. I then created schematics for pages that gave users clear information about what to do at every step. We showed the actual text of the email that users sent to invitees and allowed them to type in their own personalized messages.            Back to Sharing an Album main page Screenshots ©2000,2001 Snapfish.com Corp. Snapfish and the Snapfish logo are trademarks of Snapfish.com Corp. Used by permission.