Competitors and Similar concepts

Within my research, I want to investigate into features and competitors of Snapthat. As I have researched deeply into 'Screenshot' I won't be researching more into it; however, I will be speaking about Instagrams 'shop' feature and Depop. In doing this research I hope to pick out the pros and cons of each potential competitor and what could benefit me when creating my app.

First I will be looking into Instagram's 'shop' feature; It could be argued that Instagram is the leader for the influence of other apps such as Depop or the layouts of those apps such as ASOS with its rectangular symmetric boxes and simplistic background design. Instagrams shop feature gives businesses (who are labelled as such through the social media) an ability to have an 'immersive' experience with its followers, Instagram claims 'with shopping on Instagram, you can choose photos you'd like to feature, tag up to five products per image or twenty products per carousel' an undisclosed source for Big commerce.com  claim that 'Early adopters of the technology are reporting increased traffic and sales from Instagram as a result of the tagging capability.' I think this to be interesting, as the feature has come into play I have seen nothing but the shop feature to be promoted when I follow brands, only by my assumption I can guess that this must mean that the new feature is working, right? with no source or direct confirmation of who has said the quote, I can take this a face value, however, I believe there is some truth to the fact Instagrams shop feature works. Kevin Weil (employee of Instagram) states that there are over 800M of monthly active Instagram users, 500M of daily users and 70% of users follow at least one business account according to Instagram. Whether brands are advertising or building an audience-Instagram has fast-tracked hundreds of thousands of sales. The brand Natori claims that they have had 1,416% increase in sales since Instagram introduced the shop system; 'Instagram has played a major role in helping us build a brand, and we love how the new shopping features allow us to easily showcase our products in a way that feels authentic to the community we’ve built,” said Ken Natori, President for The Natori Company. “In just a few short weeks of using the new shopping features on Instagram, we’ve seen a 100 percent increase in revenue from the channel and a massive 1,416% increase in Instagram referral traffic to our website.” This information alone confirms just how successful Instagram's shop feature is, in knowing what I do, I believe that it is a true competitor of Snapthat.

Next, I started to look at Depop, it has a similar concept to Snapthat In that it is is an app but that is where the similarities end as the app allows you to buy second hand or vintage clothing from others, similar to eBay in the early 2000s. Depop has only been available to UK users since 2014, however, in the last year alone, Depop users sold $230 million worth of clothes and estimated to double in value to $460 million by the end of 2018. Money like this is not something to second guess, therefore, It can be agreed that Depop is very successful, another reason Depop could be a competitor to me is the fact that 80% of Depop users to be under 25 years old, according to Forbes. I believe that Depops success all comes down to the easy steps, the first being the easy access, no longer do we have to scroll to find the garment we as consumers are looking for, with an easy filter and search section at the tap of a screen. Another reason is that of Depops support for 'entrepreneriual' youth who are encouraged to source, style or design for the general public.

Overall, I feel like Depop is not much of a threat to my mock app in comparison to Instagram shop as the success stories are not as strong even though Instagram shops have been around for a lot less of time. From this research, I will take with me the strong sense of knowledge that social media shopping works! Knowing this means that I have all of the knowledge to pursue Snapthat knowing that Social Media shopping is at an all time strength.

Mass Media theory for FMP

To counter argue my research projects conclusion, I wanted to look into the Two-step flow model of Mass Media. The Two-Step Flow of Communication hypothesis can be best explained visually than to be written, essentially, the hypothesis was created by Katz and Lazarsfeld during 1944's presidential election campaign, they hypothesised that on observation the general public would be more likely to vote for a presidential candidate after hearing from them, themselves through the mass media, at that time such as Radio and Print magazine. On contrary to their belief, both Katz and Lazarsfeld experience that this wasn't the case with most voters making their decision on who to vote for from impersonal contacts influencing their voting behaviour than exposure to radio or newspaper sources. Armed with this data, both of decided to created the two-step flow model of communication, The theory suggests that from the media flows through two distinct stages, the first stage of the flow is that influencers who pay close attention to the media (For my argument, social media 'influencers') will receive the message that the mass media is carrying, from there the opinion leaders pass on their own interpretations in addition to the mass media content and feed this through to their followers. Opinion leaders can be quite influential in terms of getting people to change their attitudes or behaviours to fit that of themselves therefore in regards to my own research into if marketing collaborations between influencers and brands are worth it, this theory would fully support the argument, that yes it would be. The two-step flow model has given the ability to refine and predict the influence of media messages and cultural behaviour, therefore if an example of an icon of our generation such as Kim Kardashian being able to influence her users by endorsing a product such as vitamins, the assumption would be that those who follow her, will be influenced to buy the product. Knowing this, it can be suggested that this is why social media influencers are picked up to advertise products for large amounts of money on a common basis.

Weighing up the pros and cons of online influencer advertising, as one of my main competitors for Snapthat already uses influencers, I would be worried that the apps would be too similar and therefore I have decided that using social media influencers as a marketing tool is not what I will be doing with this project. Later in my project, I will look into different advertising and marketing ploys on how to launch the mock app.

Research Project for FMP

I also wanted to incorporate a previous project from my final year in media, we had to conduct a research project on our chosen but relevant topic. For this, I chose to investigate 'Are marketing collaborations between celebrities or influencers effective in increasing brand popularity?' I thought this is relevant to my current FMP as it is an in-depth look into if I could advertise my app with the use of celebrities and influencers much like Screenshop has. Are marketing collaborations between celebrities or influencers effective in increasing brand popularity?‘ is an in-depth look into whether it is worth the time and money of marketing companies to invest in the use of celebrities to endorse their products or use social media to as space for brands to have their products talked about by influencers. With the rise of ‘youtube stars’ or those making their fame and success through social media platforms there comes a time where the question needs to be asked, is it worth it? With some stars such as the Kardashians charging an estimated £500,000 for an annual sponsorship with some companies it is clear that there is some investigating to be carried out.

It is safe to say that in summary, the results after doing my thorough research were not to be as expected. Follow the page of any celebrity or ‘influencer’ with over 70,000 followers and you are sure to see something of a sponsored post with a special discount code here or an over photoshopped model posing with the latest laxative tea there, social media platforms such as Instagram are a minefield for the latest vanity fads but with there being constant increase in the sponsored posts being seen online, it would be best to assume that brands working with popular online celebrities to endorse products would only mean it is successful, however after doing my own research this wasn't the case. Doing my survey to the general public really confirmed my doubts that in actual fact celebrity endorsed products are ineffective and do not seduce more buyers to the brand. Almost all of my participants said that they would not knowingly buy a product because a celebrity endorsed them, which is a difficult fact to wrap around considering the amount we see not only on social media but on traditional media such as television. In receiving this information, I contacted multiple brands that I knowingly have worked with celebrities and influencers asking them for some basic statistics on their online marketing sales, however, none of the brands I reached out to could give me the information. Overall, it is clear to see that marketing collaborations between celebrities or influencers do not increase brand popularity. Although I did more in-depth research, I thought as part of my FMP I would touch on the survey I performed to the general public as it is most relevant to my current work.

I wanted to gather some information from a large audience on if they had ever brought celebrity affiliated products, I created my survey through google forms and then sent it out to be answered through all of my social media pages. I thought it would be relevant to do this because my research is loosely based on social media, I also wanted to share it this way to attract some responses from a larger audience of people, for example; I could share a link from my snapchat by adding a 'swipe up' feature which meant all those who wanted to complete my survey had to do was swipe up and fill out the form instead of being redirected away from the app. I managed to get 20 people to answer my survey, which I feel like is a fair number to take on the feedback and reflect on what the general public had to say about celebrity endorsements. Unfortunately, I would have liked more, however, you can't push facebook friends or otherwise to take part if they choose not to. The first question I asked those who wanted to partake in my interview was their age, in response to this, I was happy with the overall collection of results being so varied. To me, this means that my survey has reached such a mass of different audiences for marketing companies to consider but also means for me a variety of opinions. The main bulk of those who answered my survey was in the 43-50 years category, which was strange to me due to it not being the bulk of my friend or contacts or followers that I have. Another constraint I found was that I have my own prejudices in assuming that those between the 43-50 aged bracket may not have a lot of social media and so will not buy into the influence market side of things;

The next question I wanted to ask my participants was 'Have you ever bought a product that has been endorsed by a celebrity?' I wanted to know this as part of my research as I wanted to have clear confirmation on if any of my participants would be willing to admit that they had brought a product spoken about by a celebrity honestly. For my results, a lot answered yes but to counteract this some answered that they had brought a product but they were unknowingly buying the product that was endorsed by a celebrity which is unfortunate when coming to a clear conclusion on if collaborations work between brands and influencers due to there being contradictions when consumers have been asked.

The third question I asked was 'Have you ever purchased a product that you have seen advertised on social media?' I wanted to ask this to see if consumers really do buy into advertisements they see on social media, with most replies stating 'yes' it seems like advertising through social media is clearly very successful.Following this, I wanted to diverge further into personal opinions of how consumers really feel about celebrity endorsed products, the overall impression that has been given is that consumers do not feel swayed but products that have influencers or celebrities as their face of the brand, which I found to be interesting, the fact that opinions are negative this would suggest that celebrity endorsements are not successful.

Overall, the survey was great research in getting to terms with what real life consumers of all demographics what from their social media and marketing. It has come to my attention that contrary to what my previous hypothesis would have been, it seems like the general public is quite anti-celebrity endorsed marketing, the most beneficial answers to me were the ones contributed by answering the question 'Have you ever purchased a product that has been endorsed by a celebrity?'

through analysing the research I have discovered It is clear that marketing collaborations between brands and celebrities are not as successful as once believed despite their popularity. Conclusive evidence from both consumers performing surveys and online articles, it rounds in to be against celebrity endorsed products such as one participant stating ‘it can make celebrities look like sellouts’ which I thought to be a reflective statement due to the fact that there is a constant stream of celebrity ads splashed through social media, print media and other advertising placements, never the less I must take in my own research and statistics over assumptions made at the beginning. It seems to me that using celebrities to market products no longer works due to the grade of transparency that brands must give consumers deflecting back on themselves and repelling new buyers to the products, another hypothesis I have is that much of society no longer wants to conform to idolising a certain status of credible celebrity as it can be seen as ‘vain’ or ‘uneducated’. There has been a shift from the advertisements those may have seen with the likes of Monroe on the front cover to sell more products to now, where it is expected for society should create their own paths in life instead of following the life of an idol.

This project has really made me look in-depth into such a huge way advertising decides to market their products. I feel that for my FMP, I will no longer suggest the route of using a celebrities name or brand to push the products to a larger audience as it appears this is unsuccessful, instead I will avoid this route and think of new and creative ways to promote 'Snapthat' which I will explore in my experimentation.

Case Study/Review Research

As part of my primary research, I want to do a case study into a current app which could be a potential competitor to 'Snapthat'. The app in mind for my case study is 'Screenshop' founded in 2016 by duo Mark Fisherman and Molly Hurwitz who boast strong portfolios prior to their 'Screenshop' venture. Screenshops website claims the app to be easy and to 'turn any app into inspiration' however the reviews seem to argue differently such as the first review that pops up on the app store; this is a let down in itself and things only seem to get worse. Brand ambassadors are seen to be promoting the app through sponsored posts and videos shown on how to use the app, big celebrities such as Kim Kardashian are brand ambassadors for the app which is highly expensive in terms of marketing with Kim K rumoured to charge $500,000 per sponsored post for a startup company this is exceptionally expensive. Screenshop claims to spot shoppable items through the app and using an intensively detailed algorithm to push for the users to find the garments of clothing, however, it is clear from the app is mostly unusable which is disappointing to see. Further reviews stated here;

show just how little the app works despite the constant plugs from sponsored users such as Kim Kardashian.

Unfortunately, there is no other solid information on the internet about Screenshop so the further progress my research I have decided to use the app myself. I took a screen recording to show my use of the app during my time, to start with I took a screenshot of an outfit my friend Amy had uploaded to Instagram, as recommended to me by the app's instructions. Once I did this, I uploaded the image to Screenshop to see what it could pick out with me, as you can see from the video it was unsuccessful with no garments being picked out for me. From this alone, I can understand the aggravation of the app. To make sure that the app wasn't just working for clothing on the general public, I looked at images suggested to me through the app. This doesn't work either, the images offered to me with the suggested photos we not what the picture offered and I was really disappointed at this. I wanted to also use the 'brand ambassadors' as an example to see if the app could work to its full potential but as I'm sure you could image, it didn't work either!

Overall, I can see that the algorithm used for this app clearly has its faults. As an app on the market with brand advertisers such as Kim Kardashian as the face of the brand, it is disappointing to see that users are being misled. This, on top of using advertisements charging up to £500,000 and no clear sign of advertisement or revenue, at this moment in time I cant see the app being particularly sustainable. As the usage of the app is not what I am really looking at, I also wanted to look into the apps clear layout, logo and theme. 

Screenshop has a clear pink and white theme with no men being used as an example of how the app works or male brand 'ambassadors' which suggests that the app is only marketed at men, something that I will not be doing with 'Snapthat', on top of this, the logo in use seems very simplistic and not that effective, which can be proven in my second survey when asking a mass of people in my target audience what they thought of Screenshops logo. Something I will work on with my experimentation is a simplistic logo which is distinguishable. Another piece of research I will take away from my research is a neutral colour tones to be used in my finale apps layout. 

Google talk on digital marketing

Google kindly came to visit the college to give a presentation on digital marketing this is something very relevant to me and my current FMP. The presentation itself focuses in on building a digital marketing plan, something that I need to consider as part quite in depth about my final project, I wanted to take notes during the presentation as I could really understand just how relevant this was to me and my plans for marketing and advertising the app. Overall, I feel like there was a large focus on digital marketing and social media; I found this to be more and more common not only from this but through my other means of research too. Other interesting information I discovered through this presentation were statistics such as 72% of people in the UK order things off of their phones, which is huge! On top of this 60% of people in the world also research things off of their phones. Knowing this alone, it cements my idea of doing most of my marketing and advertising through social media instead of through traditional forms such as a newspaper advertisement; knowing that social media such as Facebook and Instagram collect statistics on their vast range of users means that I know that as a business I can choose to advertise through them and that it will reach my target audience directly, without having to filter through users who will not want the app such as men over the age of 50. The most important piece of information I will take from the presentation is the steps to take in order to build a solid digital marketing plan, one I will create myself during my final project. Here are some of the pictures taken from the presentation;

Overall, I feel like the presentation was really beneficial to me and my further progression during my FMP research; being educated in a small way by such a large company such as Google was a privilege to have been a part of. As said above, I will take away with me the six-step guide to building a digital marketing plan as it will mean that I have shown a well thought out process into my marketing and advertising research.

Gen Y Now Book Review

As part of my research, I wanted to do a book review on 'Gen Y Now'; the book itself adds to the ever-expanding genre of 90s nostalgia, add a scrunchie and Furby into the mix after reading this and I felt like travelling back to the first years of my life. The point of reading this book as part of my research was to really help me understand just how my target audience currently shops, splurge and live their day to day lives, as someone from generation Y I think I have somewhat of an idea, however continuously research to confirm this will help further progress my knowledge and also benefit my FMP by allowing me to process important aspects such as marketing and sales (considering how my app will make revenue as a business). 'Gen Y Now' mainly focuses on the new evolution those in the workplace are experiencing whereby the masses of 'baby boomers' are retiring and it is now the time of Generation Y to take their place, the book itself begins with demographic research to concrete practice of just how useful we as a generation are, however, the statistics used will really benefit me in terms of just how they live their day to day existence, for example; 'People between the ages of 15 to 24 make up 20% of the world's population.' This is a prime example of why I believe my app will be successful, out of that 20% doing my own further research I discovered this graph; In the US alone, 71% of 18-24-year-old Americans use Instagram, as this is my target audience this cements further the estimation that my app should be successful. For future reference, I consider Gen Y to be those born from the 1980s-1998.

To continue on, my book review can be found below;

Title of Book; Gen Y Now
Author(s); Buddy Hobart, Herb Sendek
Year of Publication; 2014

Biography of the author(s); Buddy is the president and founder of Solutions 21, a business management and consultancy firm based in Pittsburg. Solutions 21 regularly perform seminars on leadership and behavioural styles. Herb is a men's basketball coach at Arizona State University, Herb works with generation Y daily and knows first hand about developing gen Y successfully.

Name and description of Publishers; Wiley publishing develop digital content helping people skills and knowledge they need to succeed.

Summary of contents from books inside cover or blurb; 'There are 80 million millennials, and they are transforming the modern workforce. Your organisation stands to gain from Gen Y from employee engagement-if you know how to achieve it.

Chapter list;

1. Introduction
2. Back to the future 2   
3. The generation
4. Prejudice  
5.  Overcoming stereotype
6. Gen Yers are lazing and slacking
7. Gen Yers feel entitled
8.  Gen Yers post-recession Attitude
9. Gen Y is research orientated
10. Gen Y is delaying parenthood and marriage
11. Gen Y has a vision for themselves 
12. The ambition gap between Gen Y men and Women
13.  The human investment
14. References and research 
15. About the Authors
16. Index

Facts taken from reviews;

1. 'GenYers have been brought up looking after their own interests –  what is best for their advancement in the short haul.  They are consumers (even in education).' 
2. 'the characteristics of Gen Y. Members of the group were raised in overprotected environments with parents who respected their every word and deed.'
3. 'Nonetheless, Tulgan's manual represents an excellent resource for managers struggling to understand Gen Y.'

I really wanted this book to sustain a neutral balance however throughout the book I noticed the use key phrases such as 'manage' and 'supervise' in a patronising term as if to suggest that we, as a younger generation must be continued to be treated like so. It is very frustrating to read and I found myself wanting to read the book less and less due to the derogative terms used to insinuate that we are not an articulate generation, in terms of the research I found useful for my FMP the underlining suggestion I found is that Gen Y want to be climbing the ladder of success very quickly and with that in term comes the prize or larger salaries, in knowing this it can be assumed that Gen Y overall have a modern income meaning more money can be spent on things such as online shopping, which is great for my app to be sustained. 

The main strong points I took away from Gen Y Now were; 

1. The use of strong and well thought out research allowed for the points they made to be very clear and informative.
2. The mix of academic thinking with the added influence that is clearly made by Herb of generalised thinking of the general public means that those of any intelligence or level can understand the concise points being made. 
3. Both authors made a convincing argument that Gen Y should be 'babied' as the generalised stereotype is that we are not responsible enough and 'rush things' for example;"Teach Gen Yers to postpone low-priority activities until high-priority activities are well ahead of schedule." 

The overall weakness of the book was the downright rude insinuation that we as a generation are incapable of truly working to a high standard level like those of older generations, I wasn't expecting to get so personally offended by a book but it was unjust and unfair to those in Gen Y who what gone to university or worked to a high level in their work after leaving school. My aim by reading this book was to seek out statistics that would either prove or disprove my theory that 'Snapthat' would be successful amongst the generation Y and after fighting my way through disproving bias I feel like yeah, my app can fit into the market successfully but it does not justify the unjust feeling I have in my stomach at the clearly bitter authors of this book. 

In conclusion, I feel like I found some slightly useful statics to use pushing forward with my research. It is good to see that authors are taking on board the fresh independence of younger generations to predict how the job sector of this generation will succumb to unpredictable times. The statics found can and will be beneficial to me and out will outway the cynical overtone of the entire book looking down at generation Y. Personally, this book doesn't seem to offer enough entertainment or enlightening education for me to recommend this book for the simple enjoyment of reading or really research, I probably won't use this book again unless truely needed. 

Further Unit 12 Thinking

To discover what I want to do for my FMP, I created a mindmap to visually display the potential routes I could go through. I first started out creating a slightly simple mind map of the ideas I had to truly consider if they were strong options for me; Here you can see the routes I could go down and if you notice much like I did they all take a similar style of me designing or modifying designs for new or existing audiences, I feel like this stems from the fact that these have been my most enjoyable projects over the two years of our course and therefore as it is our last project together, I wanted to do something that I enjoyed. I also wanted to do a project similar to this to what we have done before as I know that I can work hard to get a reasonable grade to see me out for my finishing year. Creating a marketing campaign is something I would have liked to do as it is very relevant to what I would like to do once our college course is over, as you can see I wanted to create mock clothing to give an idea of what my brand could look like followed by how would I would promote the brand etc, this is heavily used throughout most of my ideas. The concept of branding a certain item seemed very appealing to me and so in knowing this, I could see it being more and more used in my ideas until I came up with the concept of creating the concept of an app, disregarding my other ideas due to the fact that marketing an app has yet to be done within the duration of this course. I am not the technological genius and so actually creating the app including the coding seemed a little bit above my skill set, however creating mockups for the app's layout as well as the overall branding of it as if this was a new app to start in the market seems like a strong project for me to pursue. In conclusion to this, I have decided to market an online shopping app called 'Snapthat' (a loose name until I research further into it) in which once taking pictures for clothing, the app will analyse the image to find clothing garments that are similar, specific to those wanting vintage garments.

Once confirming the idea that I will be branding and marketing an app, I wanted to expand upon this to visualise just what would be needed from my FMP to achieve a good level of work. Within the mindmap, I have pretty much labelled all of our assignment headlines to start to get an idea of how I will fill each of them with concent. Research is such a key aspect of our FMPs, probably the most important aspect of showing just how much knowledge you have learnt or discovered in your process of making. After learning of new research techniques throughout the year such as book reviews I really want to incorporate this into my work to show the level of work I am putting in, realising this I started to look at books I could potentially read and work with, I stumbled upon 'X saves the day' an in-depth look in to generation X, which I think is a great piece of work to have as it focuses on the consumer markets of my target audience. Another key aspect that I needed to look into and also throughout on this mind map is the use of programs, I knew that this would be a very program heavy piece of work and so after talking it out with Steve it has become apparent that I will need to invest my own time and money into new software such as Adobe XD which is specifically for app design and perfect for me, I do not mind purchasing the software myself but I am unsteady about the idea of using a new software, the plus to this is that I will realively know from the first go as it is an Adobe software and they tend to be the same to an extent. Looking at the work I need to produce seems like a lot, however, if I manage my time correctly I know I can get it done to a strong level.

After piecing together I need to do, I went on to analyse some current shopping apps on the market just to get my research started. To begin, I looked at apps which had a variety of different layouts and colour themes to distinguish what makes them different. As you can see, I picked upon on certain details such as the layout of how the app is set out such as Lush's which has the best layout because it strong shows visuals and photography and the essence of what Lush is as a brand, another detail I picked up on was the fact that that in the middle app the key image is the main focus point, this is due to the first image encapsulating the main focal point of the brand. An important detail to consider when creating my app's potential layout, something I will need to heavily think about during my research and experimentation process. Continuing on from this process, I went onto Instagram as it is my main inspiration for 'Snapthats' concept, doing this I could express certain details which make Instagram unique such as hashtags used and certain users that 'dupe' outfits for cheaper alternatives.

It's good to see my fmp starting to take shape from confirming what I would like to create for my finale project to planning out how far I will take my work in terms of research and experimentation. I would like to hope that my work plans out and that I can create a piece of work to be proud of, I believe there will be a struggle I will experience such as new software experimentation to just how my branding will work.
 

Survey and Focus group

To begin my research into 'Snapthat' I created both a survey and focus group to reach bigger audiences in my target audience of 18-25-year-olds, I combined the two as they are of a similar concept that coincided with one another.

As for my survey, I collected 28 completed. I think this is reasonable, however not as many as I possibly could have wanted. Not dwelling on this, I have collected the feedback and can reflect on the data given to me. From those who answered my survey, 13 were female, 13 male and 3 of those chose not to say, this is a strong mix of those who answered so I know I can interpret this data equally. If I was to do this again and go out of my way to do so by approaching those around in our local town or city. The only set back to doing this is that many are hesitant to answer in person as it can be time to consume therefore another way I could reach a bigger age demographic is to share it online through those of a similar to those older such as older siblings or even parents.

Here you can see that of those who answered, 42.9% were over the age of 21. This data suggests that most of those in this age group will be financially responsible and so more likely to online shop (by assumption) meaning that there could be room for my app on the market. This is good to know as it gives me confidence that I can pursue this further if I wanted to, to further prove this theory 53.6% of those who answered said that they would like the idea of this app and want to use it, therefore giving me more great results in knowing that my app could have success if it was to launch it into this market. Looking more in-depth at my target audience, I wanted to know how they felt about the apps first appearances, in other words, I wanted to understand how important the first impression of the app is. Out of the 28 who answered my survey, 15 said that it was 1 (Very) important for an app to look good sat on a home screen of their smart devices, I will take this into account when focusing on my design work, really focusing on 'Snapthat''s app icon and its colour themes to ensure it looks appealing and to be successful. To take this further next time, I would like to focus in on what the on what styles or examples of current apps that those in my target age group like or do not like.

After receiving my feedback how important the appearance of the app is, I wanted to discover if an overall theme of an app is really that important. As you can see, the majority vote agreed that is important for an app to have an overall theme, this is really important to keep things consistent and I will ensure this through things like font, colour themes and picture and text placement. I should have read through my survey thoroughly, I will admit that I rushed my survey slightly as the opportunity for me to do it in was spontaneous meaning that I had a spelling error, spelling 'Ascetic' instead of 'aesthetic', nobody pointed this out to me so It is clear I am not the only one who can't spell it! Further data from my survey suggested out of those who answered it, more would prefer a text-based app over one that was image based, I do not think I will continue with this information as I want to take my app in an image based style. Thankfully, It wasn't an overwhelming majority that preferred text-based apps and so I know that there will not be a sudden distaste for it. One of the final questions asked in my survey was 'which artistic style do you prefer?' As you can see, most of those who voted wanted more illustration based styles of images than other options suggested such as block colours. I am glad that those who voted wanted more illustration based images as these are some of my favourites to create, knowing this I know that I can put time and effort into my artwork to make it relevant to 'Snapthat'.


Overall, I am really happy with the feedback I received from my survey to push myself into my next steps of experimentation. A few minor issues such as not getting as many participants as I would have liked really disappointed me and due to not having more time to collect more answers even through sharing on social media, I feel like I could have pushed it further through outlets such as more social media. Another issue I faced with the typo which I spoke about above, it was a minor error which I couldn't change but thankfully I discovered this typo before it was too late.  In the future, I would wish to add more questions into the questionnaire to make it more thorough, if people have the time to be answering my questionnaire it should be used efficiently ensuring that as many questions as possible are answered so I can relate back to what they want. I will be sure to incorporate this into my next survey during the production process, I would also do my survey in a less social setting than done with this one to ensure I had the focus of my participants but I am relieved to have the filled out surveys I do and these will carry with me until the end of my FMP.

As for my focus group, I asked a collection of 18-25-year-olds, 15 of them said that they would complete my focus group which was great to gather a large amount of information together about my target audience. Unfortunately, due to the social setting in which the focus group was completed; I couldn't record the information that was fed back to me as it would be incoherent anyway. To combat this I ensured to write down key notes that would be useful for further research, writing down the information I also stated their gender and age as these are both important factors to take into account for when using the data later. I believe that a focus group is beneficial to me as it can really help me have a deeper understanding of what my target audience is attracted too in terms of app usage and overall theming and ascetic. As for the questionnaire itself, I wanted to keep the number of questions to a number lower than 10 as I didn't want the participants to get bored, In doing this I also limited the focus group discussion to being less than half an hour for the same reason. As for the questions I brought up to the group, I wanted to establish a clear understanding of what I meant by each one instead of derailing the discussion by asking what the question meant instead of answering it. Here are the questions I asked;

During this process, I wanted to remain consistent throughout the focus group and remain neutral through the q&a process. On top of this, I wanted to balance dominant participants with those more introverted, encouraging answers from those who may shy away from speaking such as 'What do you think about this?' in doing this I ensured that all of the participants had a chance to speak. The feedback I received has been a great help, I will be using this feedback to further my research and influence my app designing. Here you can see the notes I took during the focus group; As you can see, informal notes have been written throughout the focus group as well as gender and age to note down a difference in opinion from the differentiating sectors.












To make my information for formal, I created an infographic, in doing this my results can be seen more visually than just writing on paper; Here you can visually see the information taken from my brief notes and solidified it into a visual display to make the information more readable.

Overall, I found the varied responses depending on the factor of age or gender very interesting to look at such as the male participants of the focus group were less open to the concept of the app than women but I didn't think too much into it. Another interesting fact I picked up on was the fact that those in younger age categories such as 19, wanted more advertising for the app to come in the form of merchandise, a suggestion of this would be that due to the age group they lie within, they could possibly be a student or only in part-time work suggesting that they may not earn that much money and so want the free things as a bargain, this something that I would now like to look into and design as a potential marketing tactic. If I was to go back and do this focus group again or another focus group in the future I would like to push for more in-depth answers and really question why those who thought the way they did, did. I would like to understand the physiological reading behind why those in their separating categories as participants wanted things like merchanding for the app. I am happy with the feedback given to me as some of the points made are genuinely helpful such as screen compatibility to consider when making the mock app.