Family life does not need an audience.
Impact
Project Details
Design Process
Limitations & Notes
Families lacked a dedicated, private space to bring their shared memories together, with photos and videos scattered across messaging apps and personal devices. This fragmentation made memories difficult to organize, revisit, and preserve long-term, while the absence of seamless digital-to-physical experiences limited opportunities to turn meaningful moments into lasting keepsakes.
About
UX/UI Projects
Lead UX/UI Designer
My Role
Mobile App
Project Domain
18 Weeks
Project Duration
Discovery Call
Publications
UX Research
Competitor Analysis
Moodboard
User Flows
Sitemap & IA
Lo-fi Wireframes
Visual Design Concepts
Hi-Fi Screens
Design System
Website Design
Development Handoff
What is Rootchat?
RootChat is an invite-only, family-oriented social communication app that provides a private space for families and friends to share, organize, and preserve photos and videos in dedicated groups. Designed to keep shared memories accessible beyond individual devices, the platform bridges digital and physical experiences through printed photo books, monthly photo print subscriptions, and digital smart frames. It enables users to relive meaningful moments while building a lasting, shared archive of their personal memories.
The challenge
Families lacked a dedicated, private space to bring their shared memories together, with photos and videos scattered across messaging applications and personal devices. This fragmentation made memories difficult to organize, revisit, and preserve long-term, while the absence of seamless digital-to-physical experiences limited opportunities to turn meaningful moments into lasting keepsakes.
The existing MVP provided basic chat and album functionality but had reported performance issues, buggy animations, limited media management, and few features beyond its core communication experience. The product needed a more complete user experience that supported both everyday interactions and the creation, purchase, and delivery of physical photo products.
The Existing App
The challenge
The original experience struggled to translate user intent into sustained participation in the smoking cessation programme. Although users could register, many did not understand what to do next, how to manage their cravings, or how the application could support their quitting journey.
Complicated medical terminology, poor feature discoverability, technical issues, and restrictive paid content further increased friction. Users frequently stopped engaging after the first few days, leaving essential tracking and educational features underutilised. The business needed to improve onboarding, programme enrolment, feature adoption, and retention while creating a stronger connection between the digital cessation programme and Nicotex's nicotine replacement products.
Chat, albums and groups
The original MVP was centered on chat and albums, with limited functionality beyond basic communication and media sharing. The redesign expanded the experience to include group management, addressing the need for more complete controls around shared spaces and their members. The design needed to accommodate the relationship between conversations, shared media, group membership, and personal access to memories.
Photo books and individual photo prints
The ordering experience needed to accommodate two different physical products while allowing users to select memories from their shared albums.
Individual Photo Prints
Users selected images from their albums and were charged per photograph. They could also add an additional empty photo album to keep and organize their printed photographs. Captions could be added for printing alongside the selected images.
Photobooks
Users selected either a 24-page or a 36-page photo book before continuing through the ordering journey. They could choose photographs from their albums and add captions to accompany the printed images.
Both journeys continued through the relevant ordering steps, including quantity, delivery address, payment, order confirmation, and tracking. Separating the product choices at the beginning helped establish distinct purchasing paths while retaining a consistent ordering structure.
Monthly photo print subscription
The subscription introduced a recurring commitment that required users to complete a specific action every month. The subscription allowed users to select six photographs each month, capturing personal memories, life events, and meaningful moments. The selected photographs would then be printed and delivered to their homes. Unlike a one-time purchase, the experience depended on users returning to the application and completing their monthly selection within the required timeframe.
If a user failed to select the six photographs before the monthly deadline, they would not receive that month's order. The experience included recurring reminders to encourage users to complete their selection.
rFrame discovery, rental, and setup
rFrames introduced a connection between the mobile application and a physical digital photo frame, with a rental model tied to the user's stay at a location. An rFrame is a digital photo frame that can display photographs and albums shared from a connected mobile device.
Location-based Rental
Users could encounter an rFrame in a hotel, hospital room, or another rental space. They could connect their mobile device to the frame, share photographs or albums, and pay for the rental period associated with their stay.
Personal rFrame Ordering
Designed the application screens associated with ordering an rFrame for personal use, extending the product experience beyond temporary rentals.
The Reflection
RootChat required designing more than a collection of mobile screens. The project brought together private communication, shared media, one-time purchases, recurring subscriptions, and experiences involving a physical device.
The project reinforced the importance of treating commerce, subscriptions, and connected-device experiences as distinct user journeys within a unified product architecture. It also highlighted the need to make recurring obligations and time-sensitive actions clear, particularly when missing a deadline directly affects a user's ability to receive a product.
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