Context
Pinterest is a web and mobile application company that operates photo sharing websites. It is a catalog of ideas all over the world. As you open it, you are attracted by so many different beautiful pictures of photos, artifacts, artworks, graphic design and so on. These beautiful pictures could be a great creative mood board for people who want to create something cool.
I usually scan Pinterest before I go to bed, it is my night ritual. I don’t like read a lot of words before sleeping so prefer to scan Pinterest to collect and update the new stuff. Also, when I have some design projects to do, I will open Pinterest to search related topics or look back my “Pins” to check if I have saved some good cases. I usually get nice inspirations from it. In conclusion, Pinterest can be used for relax or for fun in a short time. People may not have specific purpose, it can be used in piecemeal time. Also it can be used as an inspiration library for creative workers.
Intended Users
Pinterest is a niche personalized social media platform. The Pin plays a “bookmark” function, it make users connect in the mind to the real pin and board. In real life, we usually use pins to paste some notes or memos for notification. The intended users can be creative workers, such group of people have large need of creative ideas. Pinterest could be a good library for them to search ideas. Also, it can be a great tool for students and teachers who study design, photography or other creative fields.
Structure & Design
This app’s main page is intuitive. As you open it, you can see many pictures and photos, it is a endless page because each time you press the page and pull it down, it will come out new post. It is always updating and changing. The bottom line includ four small icons. Except the Pinterest logo icon, there are just three useful icons. They are easily to understand because people have adapted the magnifying lens means search, the person icon is user account, the message icon means new message or notification.
On the app, users have two ways to save it or pin it. One way is simple, you can touch it, come into the single item page and select different icons (like, send to others or save it). The other way has some interaction process. You don’t need to come into the item page, on the main page, you can hold to press the item you like, and you can see there are the same icons as in the item page. You can directly save, send, like it without opening it. I like this function, because most times, I don’t need to open it to read the details, it make me collect a lot of good ideas in a short time, like a brainstorm.
There is no obvious color of the app. Except the colorful contents, most parts of the app is just white and grey. The logo of Pinterest is red, the p looks like a real pin. When you want to type something, the cursor of Pinterest is also red. It makes me feel matched.
Strengths
The first strength of the app is, it is very friendly to first users. You don’t need to read the instructions to know what a kind of app it is. As you open it, you can see the content directly, all you need to do is just scan. It makes me to think about “Snapchat”. Although many people said it is such a successful app, I don’t use it. When I first open it, I almost didn’t know what it is. A social media or a video media? It make me confused and finally I give up trying any more.
The second strength is, it mock up real life experience. Everyone know what is pin and what is board, most people have the experience of pin notes to board. When they start to use it, it is easy to make users know that pin means save and collect. It seems simple, but actually not everything is simple like it. A good example is the Safari browser I am using. When I try to save some web pages, I always need to choose one from “add it to reading list” and “add bookmark”, I don’t know the difference between them until now. Sometimes I choose reading list, but when I want to search the stuff I saved before, I forget where I put it in. I usually check the bookmark list and reading list. It make me crazy.
The third strength is the visual design of Pinterest. The most part I like is, when you want search something in the search bar, it will come out the trending on Pinterest automatically. The color of these items are changing from dark to light, it use color to show the order from most popular to sub popular topic, I like this design and I didn’t find similar detail in other app.
Weakness
I really like this app, it is a little difficult to say the weakness of it. The first weakness of Pinterest is, it is not easy to find the original author of the work. I usually saved some good items and I want to know who design it and I want to follow his/her dribble or other social media, but I can’t. Although in the comment, the name of the author are mentioned, but it is not easy to follow them directly, I need to search their names on Google and try to find them.
The second weakness is, the social function of it is a little weak. It is a sharing platform, you save, search but you can not upload your own work to your own page (users can upload the items to their pins but there is no difference with the saved pins). I hope the Pinterest can develop a personal page like facebook.
The third weakness of the gesture interaction of Pinterest is need to remember. When I open one item, I usually slide it down and up to see the details, but I usually forget if I slide too much (for example, slide more than the top or bottom), it will exit automatically. I usually forget this, many times, I don’t want to exit, but because I slide too much, I was exit and I need to click it again to come in. It usually bring some trouble to me.
