Interface 0.01
I started playing with the way that the interface would work, and how a user could swipe between the screens to view different levels of a memory from the timeline a more scrollable list of memories to the individual memory itself.
One thing that’s become necessary is the use of a bottom bar to manage the way that users will post and interact with some of the features in Facet.
The most prominent thing is the plus (+) symbol in the middle meant to draw the eye and create a focus on adding a memory. The search and sort on on the right while the home and timeline buttons are on the left.
Also appearing is the inbox for the first time. We need a place to put new memories or comments or likes.
I think I‘m at a place where I feel like this is the style or vibe moving forward.
I wanted to be able to call out the different zones in the app and establish some pretty hard and fast limitations on information placement. I think these fences make the most sense for what should go where.
Below, you’ll also see the flow from adding the memories. After the user presses the plus sign, I want them to be take to a screen to choose the memory style they want to add. Here we have photo, location, music, and text memories.
The user selects the memory style from a bottom bar menu and then moves forward by selecting the memory components like, who, what, where, and when before sharing or adding it to the timeline.
Refined lines
I wanted to start exploring how the design would look in a grid view where you could look at a lot of memories at once. I also wanted to test how multiple timelines would look and how someone would look at them in the image above, the user can see each year of their lives in a separate lines. The idea would be that if they pressing on the lines, they’d be take to the screen on the right where they could see the memories a little deeper.
I liked this idea, but I wanted to move a little deeper with vertical setups. See below
I liked the vertical aspect of this a lot, and started to play with how you could seacrh and sort with them, bringing out the horizontal lines of the category you’re filtering so that you can see them in your timeline a little better.
Lastly, you can see below how I moved further into the idea. In this short scenario, the user has search for a friend named “David Cin” (buddy of mine from New Balance), and found that their lives crossed at certain points in time.
I think this will be the running design that I move forward with. It permits a lot of space for viewing the memories as well as providing the areas that I need for search, sort, and the eventual iconography.
Evolving
I had some time, and I went through some evolutions today.
I first started playing with the line work both in vertical and horizontal. I think this presents a cleaner look than the dots with the thin line and then the thick line… But the thicknesses don’t mean anything. I think I’m trying to force the genomic aspect of the design without a definite utility.
So, I went back to a combination of the two interfaces, blending the spore type with the line type. I like the simplicity of the image below, and the ability to likely flick the screen left and right to get to the memory that you want to see.
Then I started to play with removing the “bud” altogether and simplifying the presentation to lines and transparencies. While I like the look below, I think that the horizontal timeline isn’t as good as a vertical one.
Logo Ideation
Some early logo ideation above playing with a light typeface, the concept of a facet, and the idea of the electrophoresis memory bands. Just some early work, nothing brilliant, but I needed something for prototyping and for the app store iconography.
Slime Buds
I liked it so much that I wanted to play more with the little nodes that looked like slime mold buds (I believe they’re called sporangium).
The images below show how the interface timeline might scroll left to right, and the memories would “bud” off of them. You’d press each memory, and it would display the color of that memory type (green for music and blue for an image here) reaching up toward the memory that you were viewing.
Below, you can see how I wanted to show interactions with people as well. I liked the idea of being able to see how people crossed paths and how memories were shared between people in a way to build a bridge across their timelines.
At the top of the screen, I wanted to also play with the idea of a sort/filter option for memory types.
You can start to get a sense of flow from these images, but there’s still the larger interface that needs work.
Adding Memories
I began exploring how to add memories today. While it’s fun to think of the timeline and the data-viz aspects of the app, it needs to be functional. To keep the development initially simple, I’m going to use stacked lists wherever I can that transition to more stacked lists.
The order of operations for adding a memory will be to pick the type of memory, then record the memory (photo, text, etc.), and then enter the details of the memory.
One of the things I’ve been struggling with is that some memories are more complex than others. Some memories are photos, songs, and places while some might just be text. I think that no matter the memory, it’s important to include the option to add a place and song.
It’s also key to be able to tag people from your contacts from your phone.
Working out the user process like this is important because, while not a true use of the app, it walks the designer through what it’d be like to actually use the design, moving between screens, etc.. The image here is a tine snapshot of the larger tree.
Little Dots & Slime Mold
I liked the “Pointer” image from the other day, so I started to play with the way that I wanted to represent the memories in the line. I started to play with the method for the icons and indicators. I hopes to show not only what the memory was but also who made the memory.
I started to like the Genomic one because of its emerging simplicity while also having a genomic electrophoresis map look to it. See below for an example. There was something beautiful emerging from this direction.
I also starting to play with little dots that looked more like timeline indicators as well. They started to have an almost slime mold look to them, and I wanted to keep playing with that theme. I loved the idea of life moments being represented by little buds popping up off of your life and then looking like the electrophoresis when they were connected.
I also started playing around with a display screen. While the timeline thing is fun to play with, I need to have a way to browse and view the memories from the timeline. You cans see below how that began to emerge
I think things are starting to feel really good with these directions. It’s fun to play with the art style of it all, but I need to start focusing on the actual interface and how the app will actually function.
Tugging at traces
I started to think more and more about how peoples’ lives intersect, and below is an examination of the interactions between 2 people shown almost like two threads being pulled towards each other with the interactions being the binding elements. I was playing with elements like color, where person A is blue, and person B is magenta, so their interaction is purple. That kind of thing.
While I liked this look, it was really only useful for a few memories because the screen just begins to fill up, and you lose the sense of the threads being pulled toward each other.
First Sketch
I needed to start somewhere.
I wanted to explore ways of looking at a person’s life and see it in some sort of line. The goal was to use a timeline style function on a phone screen to convey the beginning at the bottom and the end at the top. The images below represent the first steps in that direction. The icons indicate that I want to use different “forms” of memory such as music, location, and text memories.
The different colored lines were meant to be two different people coming into contact with each other and then showing the shared experiences by them and how and when they connected. You can see there’s a concept of time gaps between people, showcasing how two friends might meet, then have intense interactions, and then nothing for a while, and then start back up. I wanted to play with the connectedness.
Beginnings
It all begins with an idea.
This is captured in another place on the site , but I wanted to put something in the blog as well. This shows the beginning of the idea for Facet, and what I was thinking initially.
In memoriam.
My dad passed from Alzheimer’s in June 2021, and while it was painful in its own way, what stood out most starkly was seeing first hand how we remember ourselves and how we remember others.
His funeral was held at the Catholic church he’d attended. It was expectedly small, but it still felt like no one was there; it felt like no one remembered him. Surely he’d made a larger impact.
Later on, when my step mother revealed what was left of his belongings, it didn’t seem like he had remembered anyone either – before or after the disease. He was a teacher, a coach, a father, a husband with really nothing left of himself or of others. 74 years of life, leaving in its wake a few rings, some Christmas ornaments, and some clothes.
I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t more – there weren't more people to remember him; there weren’t more pieces of other people from his life.
It wasn’t his fault though. Memories are hard to hold onto with our minds alone. We try to cheat, and we give ourselves physical mnemonics to help us in the form of the things we save. We save visual, aural, olfactory, and tactile reminders to catalyze our memories. However, the number of objects that remind us of people can become overwhelming, taking up space in our lives, requiring us to purge them. We’re forced by the limitations of the space in our physical lives to get rid of these objects, but in doing so, we are deciding whom to forget.
I am bad at trying to purge these physical memories.
I clutch and hold onto pieces of people and pieces of my life, stored in small shoe boxes scattered around our house and garage. These corrugated containers are a physical backup and tangible evidence of a life lived. This hoard of memory boxes I hold more dearly than before because of the looming genetic threat of losing my ability to recall the associated events and people.
The funeral cemented for me that not only did I need a way to store these memories, but that I also needed a way to share them. I came back and began to catalog what I had, opening boxes and taking photos of the items inside, digitally collecting the pieces of others’ lives that I’d saved in memoriam.
Then I began to share these captured objects with the people they represented. I shared songs, letters, plane tickets, clothing, and more via emails and texts. I shared because I thought that these saved items would bring joy to the people in my life. I shared because maybe these items would pull feelings and thoughts out from the periphery beyond the edge of memory. I shared to help them understand that something they thought was an idle conversation or a mundane interaction was still held by me as significant.
The process was important because it felt essential for me to let people know that they mattered, that they made an impact, that they were thought of often and fondly, and that efforts were made to preserve their memory.
There must be a better way.
This was the inception of Facet. After spending time trying to catalog all these memories of people, I really wanted a better way to do it. I had tried Facebook, Instagram, Google Photos, and just a Dropbox folder. There wasn’t anything that let me share the memories and document them on a timeline that was easily viewable and searchable. I didn't just want to share a photo, I wanted to be able to tag that photo at a certain time or period and then be able to view the connectivity between me and another person. There wasn’t anything that made it easy; there were bad or compromised solutions, but there wasn’t anything that did what I wanted the way that I wanted to do it.
The initial concept that flowed from the desire to share and the frustration with the current tools was to create an app that would let me and others catalog their memories (photos, objects, chats, songs, emails, etc.) and then put them into a linked timeline. The process went from sketches, renders, prototypes, and now this Beta App that I’m asking for help with. I shared this process with a few of you reading this, and I can’t thank you enough for your initial thoughts and feedback.
Facet was created because we all carry memories of each other that no one else has access to. We have fragments of friends, family, loved ones, and even distant acquaintances that could be combined with other memories to build a more holistic view of a person. These memories are usually hidden away, spread across hundreds of people, persisting, while the ones we remember may live unknowing of this enduring influence.
Facet was built to assemble and share these pieces on the timeline of our lives. It’s a place to share the music, photos, objects, quotes, locations, and more that we associate with the people who, even through distance and time, we still preserve and celebrate. And, in sharing the pieces of others that we carry with us, we communicate the lasting impacts they’ve had.
Fame shouldn’t be dependent on wealth / notoriety
Beyond sharing with people from past, I also wanted people in my future (my son, daughter, more) to be able to know me. Current methods are restrictive. My kids can only know the me I am as they’re growing up — when they’re 40, they’ll be able to know me at 80, but they can’t know the 40 year old me when they’re 40. I wanted a way to communicate with them in the future who I am today — to be able to share my thoughts, struggles, joys, so that when they’re old enough, they can see me at their age and know me. I want my 40 year old son to get to know his 40 year old father with all my faults, fears, loves, and passions and maybe feel better about or comfortable in with own. This level of communication and documentation is usually restricted for the famous, and, to be blunt, fuck that.
Fame shouldn’t be dependent on wealth / notoriety. Being remembered isn’t a problem with scarcity any longer. Being remembered is no longer dictated by whether your memory is worth the paper someone has to write you on. Data/storage is relatively free and expansive; we should be able to know people not just by what they post of themselves but also what pieces of people that are carried by others; preserved for viewing or looking at a later date without the hurdles of current social platforms.
There's no reason that 100 years from now, my great, great, granddaughter shouldn't be able to look me up and learn about me. She wouldn't need to look at pictures of other people and places to get an "idea" of what 2021 was like; she should be able to know that on Feb 11th at 1am PT, her great, great grandfather was sitting in his office in Manhattan Beach, CA, listening to "More Than This", by Peter Gabriel as he wrote this letter. My grandson's granddaughter should be able to see the house and room it was written in, maybe get a sense for the lighting and the mood; maybe even eventually see that I keep repeating the song from 2:50 to 5:15 mark because those bits give me frisson -- literal chills. And from this she should be able to untangle the threads of who I was, who you were, and maybe who we were to each other, being able to gaze backwards on our timeline all the way to when we first met. There is something beautiful in there.
Us
And this is where the idea of Facet becomes powerful. It’s a collection of memories about a person that lets us rebuild them. It’s the ability to see someone not just how you knew them but also eventually how others knew them. While the current iteration of Facet doesn’t let you look at others’ timelines, I eventually want these to be shareable. A good friend passed on this statement after hearing the idea.
“In 100 years, we may eventually be the collection of other people's memories, placed into position on a timeline where future generations can look at them and, by reconstruction, maybe know you, me, and us better.”
And there’s something beautiful about this kind of preservation. Acts of kindness stretched out and remembered across a lifetime, communicated and cataloged for future generations to view.
You
I know you’re busy with life, work, kids, and pressures and deadlines that never seem to let up. I know you have an inundating amount of social apps around you as well; I believe in this, and even if it’s only useful to a few people, I believe it’s something that needs to exist. I’d really like some help refining it, and, if you’re reading this, I’d appreciate your insight to help build something as beautiful as the lives we’re trying to capture.