Sanghoon Hwang | HP Sprocket Panorama

Overview

Challenge

Justifying the need for a separate app while ensuring it felt fresh yet consistent with the Sprocket brand, all while designing an adaptable SDK that maximized creative potential for long-format prints.

Goals

Create a stylistic, easily navigable home screen.
Develop a powerful SDK editing tool.
Adapt existing flows from an existing app for a new product.

Purpose

Empower users to print extended 9-inch strips with creative flexibility, supported by a custom SDK that enhances their design possibilities.

SECTION 1

Adaptation

Sprocket vs. Panorama

So one may ask, why does the Sprocket Panorama get its own app instead of joining the roster on the regular Sprocket app?

We determined that the defining feature of the Panorama, the ability to customize the print size, was deemed a big enough disruption to the existing user flows in the original Sprocket app.

The first step in every user journey is the most crucial one, and so the landing page had to reflect the familiar, yet different vibe of the Panorama app. We sought to give the landing page a fun and characteristic twist to set it apart from the regular Sprocket app. And so, the idea of modeling the screen after a long strip of photo prints was born.

SECTION 2

Onboarding

Usability Testing

From a hardware perspective, the Panorama requires a complicated setup. So it falls to the software side of things to ensure that the users take the right first step, whether the user has experience with Sprocket or not.

So the focus of the usability test was about the first-time setup and printing experience for users who have never interacted with the Sprocket Panorama. Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of pain points in the onboarding process that needed to be addressed.

Lossless Compression

As evident by the usability testing, the first draft of the in-app onboarding was too overbearing for most users. It consisted of 9 confusing steps with unclear directions and imagery, leaving a lot of room for user error. There were also complaints of the onboarding process feeling too long and exhausting.

The primary goal in the revision was to cut down on the number of steps to let go of the users' hands sooner. This would be made possible by a couple of methods:

Cut out redundant explanations.
Merge multiple steps to reduce number of screens.
Create clearer visuals to show the user what they should be exactly doing in each step.

Welcome to Panorama

Using the compressed onboarding process planned after the usability testing, I got to work on storyboards to visually guide the users along the way.

Final Version

The storyboard was adapted into 3D animations, which allowed us to combine multiple steps all the while improving the clarity of the visuals shown to the users.

SECTION 3

Printing Process

The Sprocket Panorama was also featured at IFA 2023, the world's largest consumer electronics and home appliances trade show. It was our chance to observe how the general public goes through the printing process from beginning to the end.

One clear problem was discovered — users often failed to realize that their print jobs have been sent to the printer, causing them to send duplicate copies to the print queue. The app had to provide stronger feedback to the users to prevent this from happening.

Queue it Up

There were several iterations and ideas regarding the print feedback. The original relied on a toast message, which clearly wasn't prominent enough. Whether we opted for a pop up or a full screen prompt, there were several things that were needed in this state:

The final version of the new print state provides the users with key information and interactions:

Stronger visual feedback that a print has been sent, including a success message
Access to the print queue
Print job timestamp
Printer status
Visual indicator of multi-prints

SECTION 4

Custom SDK

Alongside the HP Sprocket Panorama, we have been developing a brand new Software Development Kit (SDK). This will not only allow us to design with more flexibility, but also give more power to the users with new features.

To aid with the development of the custom SDK, our UX team worked alongside the developers to ensure a smooth implementation of the tool into the Panorama app.

Note: The images below represent an alpha build of the custom SDK.

SECTION 5

Conclusion

Retrospective

Joining midway into the project, I tried my best to clean up inconsistencies in the design language implementation. Had I had more time with this product, it would have been easier to understand the limitations set by the current SDK, and the reasonings behind design flaws in the project.

Post-Launch Support

The Sprocket Panorama successfully launched in Q4 2023, but post-launch support is planned for years to come. Currently, the team has several new additions planned for track 2 of the project, with the biggest one being templates. Templates will allow for users to create more complex and involved prints, and it's a process that I'm driving from scratch.