Rob Fracisco | Oakland, CA

Socialcam

2011-10-18T17:55:01Z

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One of the biggest lessons we learned from the Justin.tv Mobile Broadscasters was that most content created were short video clips that were being watched after the broadcaster wasn't live anymore. By uploading the video clips in the background for viewing after the fact rather than streaming the video live, we figured we could upload higher quality video, greatly improving the viewing experience. We also wanted to be free to build a different type of video experience than what already existed at Justin.tv. So, we decided to create Socialcam as a completely new product. We decided this in December with the intentions of launching 3 months later in March at SXSW. With a small team, myself as the sole designer, we set off to accomplish this crazy goal.

In those 3 months, I wireframed the entire User Interface for both iOS and Android apps; each following their native interface design patterns. I also created Socialcam's entire identity including logos and color schemes and then applied the identity to the app interfaces. I also designed all marketing and print collateral including business cards, stickers, and T-shirts. Lastly, we created a simple web experience where I was able to master my understanding and usage of HAML and Sass.

My favorite design concept that I came up with was the 4-up thumbnail that came to me on a morning bus ride to work. I felt that standard 1-up thumbnails were rarely accurate representations of what was really in the video and felt there'd be a better chance to see what was really going on if 4 screengrabs were presented. Before launch, facial recognition was added to the process to increase the chances of people appearing in each of the 4 thumbnails.

After the initial release of our Minimum Viable Product, we continued to iterate based on users' needs and any shortcomings we saw in the existing user funnels; such as the signup and video creation flows.

Related Press

"New Apps to Post Videos With Ease" - New York Times

"Socialcam: Mobile video sharing done right" - CNET

"App of the Day" - Gizmodo

"Socialcam Surpasses 1 Million Downloads, Now Lets Users Trim The Fat " - TechCrunch

JTV Mobile Broadcasters

2011-10-10T23:53:31Z

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Justin.tv has been a leader in live broadcasting on the web since they launched in 2006. Most broadcasters use webcams connected to their computers to stream to their friends and followers. When I joined the team in 2010, Retronyms was putting the final touches on the first Justin.tv iOS application which only had the ability to view other broadcasters. As cellphones became more powerful and networks more capable of streaming video content, the demand for a mobile live broadcaster increased.

While waiting for the final version of the iPhone viewing app to be delivered, we started buidling a broadcasting application for the Android platform; still in it's infancy at the time. I wasn't originally hired as a mobile designer per se, but I quickly jumped at the opportunity to design for a new platform on the leading edge.

At the time we started, design patterns for the Android platform hadn't really been set in stone. Myself and my teammate Rhys Hiltner had the opportunity to meet with the Android team from Google to discuss what they expected to be considered a quality application. We followed a lot of their recommendations, and as a result, our app was featured prominently in the Market on launch day.

For the iOS version of the live broadcaster, my goal was to design an interface that followed established iOS design patterns closely, and thus be friendly and easy to use for first time users while staying out of the way of regular users.

The bottom screenshot is from a Hackday we had at Justin.tv where we created an animated map that pulled geo-location data associated with the broadcast and played it in sync with the video.

"Justin.tv's Android App Lets You Broadcast Live Video Anytime, Anywhere" - Mashable

"At last, Justin.tv users can broadcast live video from their iPhones" - VentureBeat

"Justin TV 2.0 brings live video broadcasting to iPhone (hands-on)" - Cnet

"Justin.tv Brings Live Broadcasting to its iPhone App" - ReadWriteWeb

AFP Pix

2009-07-08T19:26:14Z

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Expanding on the photofeeder concept, we decided to build an iPhone photography app that would highlight the wonderful photography that comes on the AFP photo wire daily. No one on my team had developed for the iPhone before, so it was a lot of fun learning the restrictions as well as the benefits of the platform. So many of our original notions of what would make a good UI changed once we built it and played with it.

iPhone News Quiz

2009-06-01T18:43:06Z

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Using the same questions and content as the Newzwag news quiz games, we created an iPhone version. When building this interface, I created a whole rainbow of buttons and kept all styling in a separate stylesheet. With it setup this way, I could easily create an infinite number of skins for the product for a multitude of clients. I also made significant changes to the interface for better usability on the device. Attached are a few skin examples; one was pitched to People magazine and another was pitched to Coca-Cola.

Newzwag Map

2009-05-29T17:18:06Z

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This was my favorite project while working for Newzwag. The goal was to find new and interesting ways to browse the latest news as it came in on the AFP news wire. Because of the wide international scope of the stories, the first step for us was to build a real time map display of the most recent stories harnessing the power of the Google map API. Also built in were filters which allowed for the endless slicing and dicing of the news content based on specific geographical areas, timeframes, and article categories. A video-like player allowed for the autoplay of the content as well. For a while, it became my personal choice for following global news. I'd simply kick back after work, hit the play button, and watch as the map would jump from headline to headline. The end goal, which you can see a little of in the last few screen grabs, was to build a tool that would allow anyone, including our staff of editors, to collect stories into 'topics' that would then be able to be 'widgetized' and used elsewhere on the web. I thought this would have been a great way for independent journalists, especially those dealing with international issues, to have another tool to add more depth, beyond the written word, to their own content.

It's unfortunate that we were never able to finish it before Newzwag ended, but the process of working on this really forced me to think of the infinite ways that news data could be displayed and which ways work better then others.

Content Factories

2009-05-28T22:03:21Z

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These are screenshots of the two content management systems we built for our team of editors to get content into our products. One is designed specifically for making quiz questions and the other is used for the creation of the galleries used in the iPhone photo application. The photo application control panel uses drag and drop for re-ordering the images. I kept the design flexible so that we could easily alter based on direct feedback from our editors to help them work faster and better. Intuitive functionality and simplicity were the keys to reaching this goal.

Error Pages

2009-05-25T20:47:40Z

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These are a few of the error pages I used for the different applications. The idea was to gracefully let the user know of the mistake. An easter egg of sorts.

Newzwag Quizzes

2009-05-14T00:47:20Z

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After the success of the Facebook news quiz, other websites wanted it for their own. This included a quiz for Yahoo during the Summer Olympics. The quizzes were also on the websites of many newspapers around the country including SFGate.com, The Detroit Free Press, and the Miami Herald.

Photofeeder

2009-05-14T00:32:53Z

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After spending many years shooting photos for both personal and professional use, one of the biggest benefits for me while working for AFP was having access to the photo wire. After seeing what would come through on a daily basis from around the world, I thought it'd be a great idea to share some of the amazing photos that I felt weren't getting the attention they deserve. I purposely wanted to keep the images the main focus for maximum impact. I created this site when I had some spare time using Movable Type for the content management. I eventually got around to making an iPhone skin as well with just a simple stylesheet replacement.

Fuel & Newzwag Blogs

2008-02-19T22:44:49Z

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Here are a few screenshots of the two blogs I built and designed for the company. We went through a slight identity crisis in the beginning. The first name and logos were chosen by an outside firm; clueless to the fact of the prevalent use of the name Fuel by many other companies. With the initial identity, I created a clean design with a gritty edge. When we went back to using the name Newzwag in the blink of an eye, we decided on a clean and simple look. Time was of the essence and thus the logo was created on the fly.

Fuel News

2008-02-15T23:07:29Z

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After we initially launched the Deadline news quiz on Facebook, there was still a push from some in the company for a straight up news app on Facebook as well. We decided to make it blend in with the look and feel of the rest of the site, so I came up with an interface that gives the app a seamless look with the rest of Facebook at the time. But, as many of us suspected, Facebook users weren't really coming to the site to read the news and it never gained too much traction. The app died a silent death a few months back.

Deadline News Quiz

2008-02-15T22:48:36Z

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Deadline is a Facebook news quiz application. We had a team of editors who'd write about 50 new questions a day based on current news stories coming in through the wire. It was an attempt to engage people on Facebook with current events in a fun way. It's setup so that you could also challenge your friend's news knowledge. It got a few good reviews like this one from the site Apprate.

TST Winter Mailer

2007-10-03T16:20:05Z

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Tomas Sport Tuning needed a promotional card to mail to their loyal customers of a winter tune up special. I thought a dark comic vibe would fit the bill perfectly while helping them keep their printing costs down.

TST Business Cards

2007-08-24T21:28:48Z

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These are a few of the business cards I've designed for Tomas Sport Tuning over the last couple years. The intention was to use some of the shop's finer project cars so that fans of the shop could collect them like trading cards as they came out every few months.

Body Techniques

2007-07-31T22:34:49Z

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These guys contacted me to help them update the look and feel of their online scheduling application for the massage company they run. They didn't want to change the functionality of it at all, they just wanted to be able to provide specialized skins to blend in with companies pre-existing intranet designs. The application was built originally in 1997 or so, so the html was ancient and all of the styling was done with inline tags and tables. My first step was to gut the html and separate the style from the markup with css. It's now setup for them to be able to match the look and feel of any of their clients. They can now come to me with a new client and I could turn around a whole new look and feel for them in a few hours. Happy designer, happy client..