What are Fire (Dynamic) lock screens?
Beyond the 2D
Although the Fire Phone is remembered as one of Amazon's biggest misfires, one can't deny the many genuinely cool features it had. One of them was Dynamic Perspective... and this feature was showcased as soon as the user turned on their phone...
Bundled with the phone and utilizing its depth cameras, Dynamic lock screens were 3D-crafted, themed scenes that utilize dynamic perspective; 3D parallaxing scenes in a virtual shadow box. Depending on the angle of the phone, the scene displayed incredible depth, enabling users to look beyond what's displayed in the foreground. As they tilted their phone, users were rewarded for their curiosity as the scene revealed more context. Jeff Bezos called this "reward upon close inspection" and it was our tenet throughout the project. With my previous background in video game concept and 3D art, I was placed as a concept artist with a role in art direction over a talented team of 3D artists for the Dynamic Lock Screen project. |
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How did we determine what Lock Screens to make?
It was tricky. There were infinite possibilities. What should our first 20 lock screens to launch with the phone? We started with User Profiles.
Through this, I learned a couple things about Jeff: He has a deep appreciation for art, and he really loves 3D. Because Dynamic lock screens showcased the dynamic perspective feature so well, I was once again, uniquely positioned to work with him directly, printing bi-monthly concept art decks for him to give feedback and approvals with a pen. It was always a bit scary, but I'm once again glad to say he liked most my work.
Through this, I learned a couple things about Jeff: He has a deep appreciation for art, and he really loves 3D. Because Dynamic lock screens showcased the dynamic perspective feature so well, I was once again, uniquely positioned to work with him directly, printing bi-monthly concept art decks for him to give feedback and approvals with a pen. It was always a bit scary, but I'm once again glad to say he liked most my work.
Concept Art
The UI has a tendency to obscure the map underneath. Maps can also get very cluttered if too much info is displayed at once. How and when do we show relevant information to the user? How do we use the hardware's tech to deal with this issue? Is there a way to reveal extra information and labels in an intuitive, natural way?
We designed a truly unique solution called, "peek." Users can simply tilt their device to reveal obscured labels underneath UI, or to reveal labels on search results without having to view lists or their info card. |
Jeff Bezos explains Dynamic Perspective and Peek on Maps
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Conclusion
Maps is hard. Incredibly hard. There are so many puzzles to deal with; So many unique features, edge cases, components, and datasets to combine in a simple-to-use package. But it's these challenges that make being a designer so incredibly rewarding. The process of working with a dedicated team to arrive at a solution really pushed me past what I perceived as my limits. Are all the solutions perfect? No, but as long as we focused on the user first, it guided us to worthy ones. After this experience, it gave me much more confidence in my ability to design for any future product. I realize it wasn't necessarily maps itself that intrigued me, it was all the problems it presented that I had the opportunity to solve through design.