pixels

BFA thesis
2020
9 weeks

How could we, through a new way of interacting with our digital photos, increase their emotional value?

tools & methods
Adobe XD
After Effects
Illustrator
Prototyping
User Research
background
The smartphone has transformed photography by allowing people to take photos anytime, anywhere. As a result, most of us now carry thousands of images on our phones—photos we rarely revisit. These images are often tied to memories and sense of identity, yet the sheer volume makes them difficult to sort and easy to forget.
outcome
Pixels acknowledges the many reasons people take photos today—capturing memories, communication, reminders, or self-expression. This has led to an overwhelming amount of photos. Pixels introduces a redesigned mobile camera and a photo management system that encourages users to consider a photo’s potential value already by the moment it’s taken. The goal is to build a more intentional and emotionally meaningful photo collection.

02/03

pixels

Introduction to Pixels

Pixels aims to reconnect us with our memories by offering thoughtful support in managing our digital photos. It acknowledges that today, we take photos for many different reasons—capturing moments as memories, communicating in place of text, remembering practical things like shopping lists, or expressing identity on social media.

Anna uses Pixels, which allows her to decide the value of a photo already at the moment it’s taken. For pictures she might want to keep as memories, she simply selects the Auto Tag option.

For quick, temporary needs—like snapping a photo of a shopping list—Anna chooses the Short Time Use tag.

At work, Anna often takes photos of notes during meetings. She’s created a custom Tag for this purpose, making it easy to sort them directly as she takes the photo.

On her way home, Anna receives a notification from The Helper, asking if she has five minutes to complete a quick Photo Task.

The Helper has noticed that Anna took 15 similar photos earlier that morning and now suggests she review and choose which ones to keep.

Later that evening, Anna and her children look through photos together. Thanks to the smart sorting done via Camera Tags and The Helper, it's easy to find the images that truly matter!

PIXELS aims to help us reconnect with our memories by offering support in managing our digital photos—recognizing that today, we take pictures for many different reasons!

Feature 1

Reimagining the act of taking a photo

As a photo is taken, the user can immediately tag it.

Auto Tag uses AI to suggest a tag based on content and location.

Short Time Use is for practical photos with limited value, like reminders or shopping lists.

Personal Tag allows users to create their own categories to suit their routines.

Feature 2

Smarter Photo Management

When opening the photo album, Short Time Use photos appear at the top—easy to access and review before they’re automatically deleted. Photos can also be searched and filtered by tags, whether added manually or automatically generated.

Feature 3

The Helper

The Helper suggests small, manageable photo tasks, like choosing the best among similar shots. Users can track their progress and see how these tasks contribute to more storage space and a more mindful and sustainable digital lifestyle.

Feature 4

Curate Memory Sections

From your saved photo collection, you can create Memory Sections by adding text, music, or context. Spending time with these meaningful photos helps strengthen their emotional value.

03/03

process

Research – survey and interviews

To understand people’s habits around mobile photography, the project began with both quantitative and qualitative research.

A survey was sent out to gather basic data about how people use and store their mobile photos.

This was followed by six in-depth interviews with potential users, a cognitive researcher, the owner of a digital photo book service, and experts in tech and digital media.

You take 20 photos of the same "moment" with the idea that you will only keep the best - but in the end, you have 20 pictures from each occasion and you just scroll past them without really looking.

I've talked to many who say they have 6000 pictures on their hard drive that they can't sort. It's the same anxiety as having 6 shoeboxes with unsorted photos in the attic. We have now moved that problem away from us by storing all the photos in the "cloud". All of a sudden it's not "me" who has the shoe boxes in the attic but Google.”

Sensemaking – why we take photos

Through the research, it became clear that we take photos for many different reasons—not just to capture memories. This variety of purposes is one of the key reasons behind the overwhelming number of images on our phones.

Based on this insight, I identified two main categories of photos: emotionally valuable, long-term-use images, and practical, short-term-use ones.

long term use
Photos taken to preserve meaningful moments and memories for the future.
short term use
Photos taken to post on social media for self-expression or identity.
Photos taken to communicate quickly (e.g., a picture to show your current location).
Photos taken to remember something temporarily, such as a shopping list or price tag.

A key reason for our overwhelming number of digital photos is that we take them for many different purposes —some to preserve memories, and others that are only valuable in that moment.

Prototyping – exploring camera interactions

I created cardboard mockups to explore how camera interactions could support smarter photo organization. Three different interface concepts were tested.

Everyone overwhelmingly preferred Prototype 3, which used swipe gestures to apply tags. The familiarity and simplicity of the swipe interaction made it feel natural and easy to use.

What if the experience of taking a mobile photo could be redesigned to reflect the reasons behind WHY the photo is taken, making it easier to manage later?

Learnings & Retrospective

If the project were to continue to develop, it would be interesting to explore what happens to photos over time — how their emotional value changes and how our relationship to them evolves. A picture that seems insignificant in the moment might become deeply meaningful years later. Understanding this temporal shift could open up new possibilities for how we manage, preserve, and revisit our digital memories.

In the years following the completion of this project, I've noticed that tech companies like Google and Apple are also addressing the issue of photo overload, and how we are interacting with them to reconnect with our most important memories.

Google Photos has introduced features similar to Pixels. The “Memories” feature resurfaces meaningful photos with AI-generated descriptions, while still allowing people to customize them. Previously, Google Assistant helped manage photos by suggesting actions like reducing clutter or rotating images, similar to The Helper in Pixels. Though, today replaced by Gemini, it shared the same goal of reminding people about photo organization.

Screenshot from 2021
Feature from 2023
 iOS 18
iOS 18

Apple Photos has introduced similar ideas. Their “Memories” feature automatically compiles collections of images around people, places, or events — something I explored in my own way with Memory Sections. They’ve also, since 2022, added a tool for detecting and merging duplicates, which speaks to the same need I identified for reducing clutter and making photo libraries more manageable.

The fact that companies like Google and Apple are tackling similar challenges highlights the relevance of this topic. What still differentiates Pixels, however, is its approach of allowing individuals to tag the intention behind a photo at the moment it’s taken, combined with a gamified system that fosters an ongoing, active relationship with their photos. By distinguishing between long-term emotional value and short-term practical use, Pixels not only helps manage photos after they’re taken but also encourages a more mindful connection with digital memories from the start.

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