Overview

Zekra is a photo album creation and printing app that allows users to easily turn their phone images into physical photo albums. Users can upload multiple photos, arrange them into an album, choose an album cover template, and order the printed album to be delivered to their door.

The goal of zekra is to bring back the experience of tangible photo albums in a quick and simple way using a mobile app interface. As more and more photos remain digital-only stuck in our phone cameras, zekra wants to make printing effortless so people can hold and showcase meaningful life event photos.

Problem Statement

People capture life's memorable moments on phones but rarely print photos leading to a disconnect. They want tangible, curated photo albums to display and enjoy but current solutions have complex workflows around creating printed albums. This leads to photos remaining trapped in devices rather than as displayed mementos. There is a need for an app that provides automated end-to-end album creation from phones - easy selection, customized design, convenient printing and delivery. The solution should seamlessly bridge lifecycle moments captured digitally to users' desire for physical photo keepsakes without manual effort.

Solution

Research

I've started to do some market research about the printing industry and found out some interesting information such as that the industry projections show the photo merchandising market is growing annually at a rate of over 15% as consumers seek to materialize their digital photos into tangible print formats. However, only 22% of smartphone users have leveraged existing services due to their perceived complexity for creating customized photo gifts and keepsakes.

I've also took the help of a survey done on 500 digital camera owners revealed the majority would print more photos if they had a simplified way to turn phone images into curated photo albums or framed prints. 67% preferred an automated mobile app for selecting, arranging and ordering albums over current manual website workflows involving uploads and complex configurations tools before printing.

Competitors Analysis

I conducted a competitive analysis by creating a matrix comparing our product to the most similar competitor in the market. The comparison criteria focused on the features available in each app. Since there is significant overlap in this market, even small product differentiators can help a product stand out. The matrix highlighted subtle differences between the products and revealed opportunities where we could distinguish ourselves by adding an innovative new feature.

As part of the research, I investigated some of the users feedback on different applications and gathered them into an affinity diagram gathered into categories.

Insights

As part of the initial market validation phase, one-on-one interviews were conducted with 8 customers within the target demographic of 25–40-year-olds.

The qualitative interviews aimed to develop deeper user insights around current photo printing behaviors and pain points as well as future needs. Each interview covered key themes like device storage habits, utilization of existing photo product options, desirable improvements and reactions to the zekra value proposition.

Personas & Empathy Maps

Analyzing the data and Preparing flows

After gathering all the data from research and various sources
I started to map out the flows and the main site map for the app

Initial Ideation and Wireframes

The sketching iterations aimed to not only address functional gaps within current photo merchandise apps but also optimize and differentiate key aspects of the customer journey based on user needs around simplification and personalization.

My design explorations focused specially on uploading and arrangement in favor of an automated photo analysis to generate print-ready albums. Additional sketches envisioned customization options for covers, layouts and packaging to facilitate cherishing printed memories.

I also illustrated multiple variations for critical interactions like image selection flows, editing tools, cart management and shipping/tracking to ideate on more seamless workflows.

The Final UI Screens

Product Creation Flow

Credits and Offers

Cart & Checkout

Components & Style Guide

Landing Page

Web Application