If you haven't heard of Path I suggest you check it out. It's a new entrant into the arguably crowded social networking space. Unlike Facebook or even Twitter the current experience is almost entirely mobile. The premise is that your network is constrained to a smaller number of people. The service limits you to 150 contacts. The design has many subtle touches that make the app very enjoyable to use.
That being said, I enjoy exploring what I may have done different. See my previous FourSquare Exploration.
Here's the original main screen:
Here are my issues:
- The people icons are too small, the self icon is circular but friends are rounded rectangles.
- The refresh icon isn't needed on screen, a pull to refresh could have been used, or nothing at all.
- The current time also isn't necessary as it's built into the iPhone status bar.
- The update Status + icon overlaps people's faces and seems to get in the way of the notification bar.
- The comments icon implies a happy face. In fact the button allows you to add comments and perform other actions beyond smiling at things.
- The notification bar doesn't feel like it fits with the interface. These notifications are part of my path but are visually represented as separate.
My exploration:
- Large faces, using the round icon treatment
- Removed refresh and time indication and replaced it with recent notifications
- Right column contains number of views or a + to allow users to add a comment/smile, etc. The + could become a strong brand element so it may be nice to use it throughout.
- Status area is more obviously place to either type or add some other media. Encouraging text input plus media will make the content easier to consume and socialize.
- The notification area is moved to the top (as part of your path). This way it doesn't overlap posts or the input area.
What would you have done different?