Moleskine Smart Notebooks are part of the Moleskine + Collection, blending analog with digital to empower creativity and help you capture, develop and share ideas.
In this project we explored the idea of a social media app that pairs with a Moleskine Smart Notebook. Honoring the brand’s heritage of literary and visual creativity, our group researched user needs to develop an app that builds on Moleskine's Smart Notebook line, and allows users to create intentional communities to share their work.
We interviewed six notebook users to gain a better understanding of how and why people keep notebooks, and when they are motivated to share, or why they might want to keep the notebook private.
Our sweet-spot is where social media needs and notebook needs overlap.
Research revealed several trends: utility, privacy, inspiration, and vulnerability.
Our group recorded all of the research findings on sticky notes, and organized those notes into groups, a process called affinity mapping. This helped see larger trends that emerged from the research.
When asked about sharing work on in a public venue, users expressed an overwhelming sense of self-consciousness associated with sharing unfinished work. Conversely, users, expressed an interest in being able to see the creative process of others.
Several people said that if they could present their work anonymously, they would do so because they see the value in sharing a creative process.
Affinity Map of Research Findings, full-resolution version is available [here].
Meet Bodhi, they are a persona, born of user research conducted by our team. Each personality trait, aspiration, and unmet need is representative of actual people based on our findings.
Bodhi is a creative small business owner who relies heavily on notebooks for the generation and sharing of ideas.
A detailed map of Bodhi's current user journey can be viewed [here] as a PDF.
Bodhi enjoys the creative process, it's their jam.
They keep a lot of different notebooks. Organizing everything can be a challenge.
They like to be inspired by other's work, but find the level of polish to be intimidating.
Bodhi doesn't like it when social media is all about the likes.
At this point in the project our group had a shared understanding of what Bodhi needs to feel happy, safe, and useful.
Since were all on the same page with a general strategy to improve Bodhi’s experience, solutions emerged easily.
I worked with the team to create a low-fidelity clickable prototype. This allowed us to test out specific interactions.
We were able to quickly see what was working, and what needed improvement for the second high-fidelity prototype. Again we tested and refined this design, to inform the final design.
The final version of this prototype focused on two major interactions, New Content and Privacy Settings.
New Content
When uploading new content, LESKI is private by default, and comments are turned off by default.
This helps the LESKI feel like a safe space, where people can easily upload and organize their personal notebook.
Privacy Settings
What if people are feeling inspired to share their work?
Privacy settings are easily accessible and can be updated with just a few taps.
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