Idea: Stories viewer in messaging app with side-tap to advancing to next person, lower-tap for person’s next Story, and/or one-tap to advance for ease and quick watching Stories (#62)

Purpose is to significantly increase how much people watch Stories particularly video by making viewing easy and no longer requiring scrolling. User can also use swipe to navigate to a person’s next Story or to go to the next person’s Story.

Messaging today:

• Snapchat has Stories. There’s an opportunity for other messages apps to introduce Stories.
• Snapchat uses full screen which is nice. Opportunity though is to enable people to see expanded media while also being able to see what’s next to view.
• Some messaging apps have primarily focused on one-to-one messaging or group messaging. There’s an opportunity for sharing to a feed.

Proposed idea:

1. Start on the Stories tab of messaging app. Tap on Person 2 to view Person 2’s Story.
2. Tap on Person 2’s Story to advance to Person 3’s Story since there are no more posts, or you can tap on the right side to go to Person 3’s Story.
3. Keep tapping in place to advance through all Stories, and tap on the sides to go back to a Story if you want.
4. Then tap on “Close” at the end to return to the Stories list. Note that the Stories you viewed animate off the screen.

Comments:

• Opportunity is to provide for space to view media expanded while also still enabling the user to advance to the next Story posted by a given person or to go to the next person with one tap.
• Square thumbnails are used to show the thumbnails of the posts which can be videos, photos, and text.
• Alternatively, there could be buttons such as for giving feedback about a post that is visible as well, or a long-press could be used to give feedback.
• “Close” button appears on bottom for providing an easy way to close the window with one tap, particularly if the user has reached the end of the the Stories by a given person. This is easier to reach than having an “X” in the upper left corner. Alternatively, don’t have the “Close” option.
• Reason to have the “Close” button is to have a clear alternative to having to swipe.
• Reason to have a “Close” button at the bottom is so user can in concept easily keep tapping there to advance until that person’s Story is done and the last tap takes the user back to the Stories list to pick another Person to view their Story.
• Tapping on a person’s Story when that is the last post by that person then automatically opens the Story by the next person. Reason is for ease of continuing to watch Stories.
• If a “Close” button appears, then the user can also swipe up to close the window because of reaching the end of the number of Stories posts.
• Reason for aligning person name to the right of the first thumbnail is because that way at least one thumbnail can be clearly viewed without text as an overlay on the thumbnail. And perhaps there are a number of people who have posted only once since you have last viewed their posts.
• Post thumbnails are shown for as many posts as there are that you have not viewed.
• Profile photo for each person appears to try to help with identifying who the next person is and which person you are viewing.
• The name of the person you are viewing could appear just above the photo/video/text/etc rather than as an overlay near the top.
• When viewing Story, background is used to help focus attention on the Story post.
• Profile photo of person with Story before and after is partly not showing to indicate that the Stories of each person is not yet open. Alternatively, profile photo could be fully visible such as in case that much profile photo is not enough to indicate who each person is easily.
• User can skip to next person by tapping on their name or Story on the left or right side, or by swiping.
• User can close viewing a Story by swiping down or tapping “X.”. Swiping down opens the prior Story of the person’s Story you are viewing if you are not viewing the first Story. Alternatively, swiping down could always close viewing the Story.

Steps starting at Stories view then viewing Person 2’s Story through returning to the Stories view. Designed by D.J. Sherrets.

Note that you can tap on the right side to skip to the next person. Designed by D.J. Sherrets.

Note that you can tap on the bottom to advance or to tap to “Close.” Designed by D.J. Sherrets.

© 2016 D.J. Sherrets