Case Study: Yahoo! Photos

Background:

When Yahoo! Photos increased personal storage from 30MB to 1GB, it became increasingly difficult for users to organize and find their photos. Moreover, the overall user experience had grown outdated, containing a patchwork of older, less intuitive, web interaction models.

Discovery & Research:

In the months leading up to the redesign, we conducted a series of ethnographic studies to better understand the online photo space. One of the key findings was photo overload: users were overwhelmed with the number of photos in their collections and felt guilty when they didn't have time to organize them into albums or scrapbooks. These findings and many others helped develop personas and scenarios for the concept phase.

Concept Exploration:

In an effort to simplify photo management, we brainstormed alternative design solutions that require minimal user effort: date filters, saved searches, photo ratings, tags. Additionally, to provide easy access to photos sent by friends and family, we introduced a My Friends' Photos view as well as the ability to comment and rate these photos. Many of the key management concepts were tested and refined with a paper prototype.

Design Development:

Although the paper prototype helped capture problems with task flows and high-level concepts, it was not the best medium for answering questions about lower level interactions. When the working prototype was ready, we ran RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing & Evaluation) tests to refine the following interactions: photo selection, drag-and-drop to albums, rearranging photos. The redesign was showcased at Demo2006 and received glowing reviews from TechCrunch and many other trade journals.

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