mobile app

Stoop Offers A Unique Newsletter Experience

December 13, 2018 General
Stoop logo
Stoop inbox on the App Store

Just like the rest, I’ve subscribed to a decent number of email newsletters, prominent amongst which are the UX Booth, UX Daily and Indi Young’s awesome effort on content and information architecture called ‘Indi in your Inbox’. Personally, newsletters have provided me with an advantage over normal news and Google or other such websites, in fetching the important ingredients while keeping the ‘noise’ out. The other obvious benefit is the delivery of content to your inbox where one could treat it like any other email and if the content no longer engages you like before you could unsubscribe it with a few clicks. The downside of this transaction is the sharing of your email, and perhaps, without your knowledge, even to third-party vendors depending upon what its privacy policy states (who reads them anyway). So while you might get the academic content you desired you could also end up with deleting or marking more spam than before. There’s always that infamous Gmail trick to filter out spam and to direct newsletters to their specific labels but it’s tedious so why live with all the hustle and bustle of technology when help is around? I am referring to Stoop that I recently put to good use to manage the surge of my newsletters.

I have reviewed apps such as Shazam & Duolingo for their uniqueness, and I am trying to categorise Stoop as a newsletter aggregator app. It’s a smart concept with the benefit of providing the user with a unique ‘yourname@stoop.email’ email and the newsletters come to the inbox inside the app. On the ‘Discover’ tab, it gives a carousel view of popular newsletters, to staff picks and even featuring publishers who regularly publish quality content, although for subscribing to their newsletter it will take you to the publisher’s web page from within the app. Basically, no more sharing your email credentials and living under the fear that your personal info could be compromised, Stoop inbox provides all the answers!

Shazam A Song, Just Like That!

October 6, 2018 Design Happenings Technology
Shazam

I was late in discovering Shazam, just like some other apps, but I don’t regret it. I love listening to any form of music and being an ‘old schooler’, the “independent” sorts, I’ve not pledged my allegiance to either Apple Music or Spotify, although it’s becoming inevitable to avoid. Meanwhile, I’m satisfying my urge of listening to soul-stirring melodies through the droves of FM stations of this city who cycle their playlists like kids on a carousel ride, so you can’t miss out on any song now, can you? I also follow an alternative method to understand & discover different kinds of sounds, by visiting the various outlets & malls in & around Toronto. As I’m sifting through the garments or enjoying a meal I’m patiently listening to a soothing melody or a foot tapping anthem that would eventually stick in my head and wouldn’t let me breathe easy until I’m able to locate its creator’s credentials. Ugh! And a Google search would only be fruitful if I got the lyrics right which is challenging in all that chitter chatter in the vicinity, so Nah! Enter, Shazam.

Though I was always intrigued by this nifty app since even before Apple acquired it there wasn’t a practical use for me to experiment with Shazam, but its time had finally arrived. It was simple. I launched it and found the circular ‘S’ logo throbbing and inviting me to tap as a tune played at a busy H&M outlet. Even though it was faintly audible the microphone on the iPhone deftly captured the notes, and in a jiffy, it displayed not only the name of the artist but also the colourful album art, the lyrics, while giving me the choice to buy it on Apple Music. It also added it to a ‘My Shazam’ playlist so I won’t lose the information! The ‘Shazam-ing’ is so seamless & quick and searching for new music has become simpler and more exciting, and enjoyable now. No more anxiety over unknown melodies, eh. I never thought I’d say this but then Google feels weak for a change! So, if you’re late to the party just like me, give it a shot.

Learning A Language With Duolingo

February 16, 2018 General

Duolingo - DuoThese are baby steps but I have been on a language learning spree many thanks to Duolingo. It has an iOS app that is perfectly suited for learning new languages – the human form of communication “language” and not the programmer’s jargon. Quite recently, I was being plagued by a depleting list of challenges, somewhat related to design thinking or product design. So the books became convenient alongside the odd articles for nirvana, though my desire to pick up French was still lying dormant somewhere. So why not!

This is my first time taking language lessons on an app but Duolingo’s informal approach to serious learning offered me encouraging support to train at the time of my choosing and on-the-go. With my headphones in place, I initiated the first lesson after creating my account, I was presented with multiple yet familiar visuals representations screen after screen and I had to choose the corresponding answer for the not so obvious french words. Tap, tap, done. Applying some smart judgement, I was able to advance in my endeavour to grasp the vocabulary, one phrase at a time. The words were audible which I could repeat to gain more familiarity. As I was progressing, the app consistently kept me engaged through the gamification process by showing my mastery level in French after subsequent tests and kept my confidence soaring high. So I stand at a low 13% today but one has to confess, being a beginner some of le français words are just so hard to pronounce! And if there’s one language that fully employs the contours of your delicate tongue, you guessed it. Duo, just reminded me that I am doing fantastic with my training, and continuing with my everyday streak would fetch me some rewards, so I’m off to learn some more French. Salut!

Groopy - Mobile App

Groopy – Designing a Community Mobile Experience

October 8, 2017 Design General
A detailed piece on how I designed Groopy in redefining a community experience

When the launch of the Business Edge Alumni Network was proposed I became involved in designing the brand identity for the group beginning with my research on the diverse community. This network is a place for industry professionals to leverage their collective aspirations and experience in advancing career growth within Canada. The network today is coexisting through the WhatsApp platform which entails several privacy issues. I believed, this privacy concern needed to be addressed, where the need to give personal information to make connections online could be prevented while the data could live on the encrypted servers. Most importantly, my goal was to integrate a community professionally moving away from the core definition of ‘social networking’. The overall focus of this inspired me to conceptualize a mobile app which I named ‘Groopy’.

Background

Social media has built a phenomenal character for users in a ‘social networking’ environment and allowing them easy transaction of personal data such as text, images, video, and opinions in general. My first concept banked upon connecting people outside of the typical ‘social networking’ definition, a professional network that is nurtured in exchanging views but those which are not meant to be ‘shared’ outside the realm of the network due to its structure of belonging only within the current stream of thought. Thus the goal of Groopy is to connect groups of people on an enterprise platform as illustrated below, and it’s an antithesis of a social network.

Social Media vs Groopy Platform

An overview of how Groopy differs from conventional Social Media.

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