How Vine Wraps Up New Users
blog.jasonshah.orgThe most appealing and inviting thing about Vine for me is its flat pixel design. There was a great article and debate about flat pixels / skeuomorphism a couple weeks back --> http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5204380
Vine is ok but you can't say it shines in terms of usability. The major issue is the tap to record. As most of the iOs users are taping to focus, you are basically going against a natural behavior for a camera type app.
I think the tap feature is what makes Vine really great.
I used an app called Dirctr before, it provides you with storyboards that you can fill with videos you record in order to make interesting videos, that are not just long shaky plan of what's around you. http://www.directr.co/ The results are great but I've only used it a couple of times because you have to go back to the story board each time you want to add a new shot. That makes the UX complicated.
I use Vine all the time because the tap to record is the simplest way to make videos composed of several shots. You can even start recording a couple of shots, turn off your iPhone and come back several minutes/hours later to add some more. And iPhones are pretty good at focusing so it doesn't seem to me like it's a big issue.
I love the tap to record feature. I found it very intuitive.
Do you think having a dedicated record button instead of just tapping would be better?
I'm curious about their hand-holding UX approach. It worked for me. But I don't know if it's something that helps most users, or just gets in the way. Would be great to be able to A/B test something like this on mobile.
i think the ux handholding approach is great.
HNers are different from most consumers, so even if it seems annoying to some of us, it probably wins by reducing ambiguity for a much larger set of users.
Obviously, it shouldn't happen EVERY time you use the app, but as an intro for new users, it seems awesome.
Are there tools like mixpanel that you could use to track engagement and usage patterns of cohorts afterwards on mobile?