500px
p/500px
#1 global online photo-sharing platform
Jeff Shin
500px 4.0 for iOS — For photography enthusiasts. Discover, share & buy art.
Featured
9
Replies
Daryna Kulya
Love the way you're describing inspiration behind product revamp on 500px blog: "Gone is the clunky and complex old app that required no less than 4 actions just to search for a photographer you wanted to follow, and in its place we’re introducing an all-new experience re-designed from the ground up to be simpler, more intuitive, and more beautiful than ever. This isn’t a new coat of paint or an addition to the back of the house, we burned the old house down and built a prettier, more functional house from the foundation up." What were some of the trade-offs involved in redesign?
Jeff Shin
@darynakulya Thanks Daryna! Given that this is the first major redesign of our app in years, we've made some fundamental design decisions that came with some tradeoffs. For example, you'll notice that the app is much brighter than it was before - light backgrounds everywhere, as opposed to the dark, serious feel of the previous version. We were looking to achieve a more open and approachable feel, as we try to diversify our userbase and our catalogue of photos. Of course, the tradeoff here is that a lot of users, especially serious photographers prefer photos to be seen on black. While we do still offer the ability to view a photo that way, we've made the decision to keep most of the app very bright. Another tradeoff we had to make was displaying photos in cropped squares vs in a full aspect ratio grid. Composition is a huge component of photography, so we want to respect photographers by not cropping their photos. However, we do understand that now some photos may shown as 'bigger' than others (landscape vs portraits). And lastly, I guess any sort of change is a tradeoff in itself. We have a very passionate userbase, and any big change could potentially make them feel less familiar with our app, our product, our brand. However, we're hoping with the new awesome features in the app, and a beautiful new design, they'll accept the changes with love :)
Daryna Kulya
@jeffshin Very cool! I have noticed how bright and inviting the app feels. Look forward to discovering great photos.
Chris Messina
Top Hunter
This is a beautiful (and impossible to screenshot!) product page! https://500px.com/ios
Jeff Shin
@chrismessina Thanks! There's a couple small details / easter eggs in there too :)
Adam Shutsa
@chrismessina Thanks Chris! It was a lot of fun to design and build.
Jeff Shin
Hey PH! We're super excited to announce the release of our new 500px app for iOS. We've been working hard on this for months, completely rebuilding it and redesigning it from the ground up. Would love to hear your thoughts / feedback!
Andrey
Popular and editors sections are still the most inspiring!