Logan Ahern

March - April 2024

Virtual Time Capsule

Virtual Time Capsule (VTC) is a startup aiming to preserve memories through messages to the future. After five years of little traction, our team volunteered to help define their target market and improve the product to ensure its survival.

UX Designer • Client Project • Product Refinement

We discovered that every family has a historian who values memory preservation. Our solution evolved VTC from a Snapchat like app, into a digital scrapbook with guided prompts, helping users create memory capsules that truly preserve their loved ones' experiences.

We conducted surveys and interviews, identifying that users value sharing experiences and reflecting back on specific time periods. This informed our decision to enhance the product's storytelling and memory preservation features from sending a single short form video instead to a collection of media.

Our target user, the Family Historian, needs support in preserving memories. They struggle with identifying which moments to capture and how to approach the subject with loved ones.

Once the problem was defined, I went back into the research phase to understand what our competitors were doing to solve it.

I found the market saturated with similar products, including Ancestry's Storymaker Studio. While I had reservations about moving forward, our team decided to focus on VTC’s unique privacy feature.

After defining the user, we collaborated with VTC to sketch a solution, ultimately deciding on a web application that allows users to create memory capsules.

Fumi developed three capsule user flows. One for the creators, outside contributors, and eventual receivers.

With only a few weeks with the team, we decided to focus on building out the flows, to ensure our solution was sound. I personally developed the outside contributor flow. This would allow friends or family to assist Sara, and add their own memories.

To modernize VTC’s branding, I softened their color scheme and updated their font to reflect a more current and fresh identity.

And delivered a temporary comprehensive style guide. Once the product becomes more defined, it would be important to dig deeper into this.

After testing, we learned our product enhancements increased user satisfaction from 5.6/10 to 8.0/10.

For our clients, we delivered a hi-fi prototype incorporating the updated branding.

Once the project concluded, we recommended further refinement of the user experience including research into the type of stories users want to document.

Thank You