每个人最出色的照片家园

来自加拿大的全球知名摄影社区 500px 里有全球几百万摄影爱好者，每天上传和分享精彩照片。而 500px Android 客户端着眼于移动应用的方便性，让佳作浏览、好友追踪、照片上传和社区互动尽量简洁地集成在一起。

本次我们邀请到 500px 的首席移动应用设计师 Eric Akaoka，让他和我们一起来聊聊 500px 背后的故事。

采访中译版

最初是因为什么而选择开发这款应用的呢？

我们的社区是从 web 上起步的。随着移动平台的高速成长，越来越多人的媒体创作和消费都转向了移动设备。摄影也不例外。我们的安卓应用就是为了满足人们对更棒的移动体验的需求，让他们随时随地都能够沉浸在我们的社区里。

做这款应用时在交互或者设计方面有过怎样的考量呢？

我们出发点一直是摄影，每个设计考量都以照片本身为先。我们努力让每位用户最流畅地浏览我们的照片库，让每张照片的展示对得起其作者的用心创作。

在这一过程中有什么印象深刻的功能点么？

当人们第一次启动我们的应用时，我们希望给他们留下一个好印象。为此，我们开发了一个独特的引导界面来介绍 500px 社区和人们可以用我们的客户端做什么。随着用户轻松扫过引导页面，一位摄影者的旅程从上传照片开始，进而被社区所鼓励与认可、与其他成员频繁互动，再到沉浸在源源不断的精彩作品中，频频激发自己的创作灵感。我们不是通过静止图像来讲这个故事，而是运用一系列连贯的动画体验，带领人们走完 500px 的这些主要功能点。

另外我们 Android 手表版的设计和开发也进行得很顺利。可穿戴技术是一个让人非常兴奋的领域，其市场规模也会不断扩大。在这种（Android 手表）新的外形因素下，如何把握功能与风格的平衡是个很大的挑战，每个像素都是前所未有的重要。最后，我们选择了最简主义的经典外观，忠实于我们一贯的设计理念：照片第一。

开发的背后有什么有意思的故事么？

移动设计的最大挑战之一是每个平台都有自己各异的惯例、指南和功能，在设计中你必须跟的自己的品牌和体验加以平衡。你总是想要突出品牌，但又不能疏远用户，或者制造出跟平台的其他地方不一致的体验。

就 500px 而言，因为我们主要着眼于照片本身，所以尽量让界面的其他部分无形。这就意味着我们尽量多地采用 Android 标准界面模式，包括采用 Roboto 字体——尽管 Helvetica 是我们品牌（和 iOS 客户端）的选择。

另一个例子是 Android 的导航菜单（overflow action menu），它的采用让我们 Android 版相比于 iOS 版的界面导航更为简化。

产品再之后的想法是什么？

我们竭力保证 500px 会是全球摄影社区中观赏和互动的最佳选择。今年，500px 在 Android 平台上会有大动作，将带给用户更为简洁与个人化的体验和更多的惊喜。敬请关注！

采访原版

Why did you choose to develop this app in the first place?

Our community began on the web, but as we all know mobile platforms are growing at an incredible rate, with more and more people all over the world turning to their phones and tablets to create and consume media-including photography. We created 500px for Android to satisfy our users' need for a great mobile experience as they take part in our community

What considerations went into visual and interaction design for this app?

Our primary focus is always on our amazing photography, so with every design decision we made sure that our photos always took the highest priority. We wanted to make it effortless to move through our catalogue of photos, and to show our members' photos in a way that would do justice to their work."

The design of which specific features left deep impressions with you?

When user launches our app for the first time, we want to make sure we make a good impression. We developed a unique tour interface to introduce 500px and what people can do with our apps. Through the tour, we use dynamic animations to tell the story of a photographer’s journey through the site. As the user swipes through the tour, they are led on a journey from uploading a photo, to being recognized in our community, to interacting with others, to finally being inspired by the amazing work all around. We tell this story not simply through still images, but as a continuously animated experience that lets you follow along.

We also had a really fun time designing and developing our new watch face for Android Wear! Wearable technology is a very exciting field, and it’s only going to grow from here. Balancing function and style is a great challenge, especially with this form factor; every pixel mattered more than ever. We opted for a classic look that adheres to our number one design value: put the photos first.

Any interesting stories from the development process?

One of the most interesting challenges in mobile design is that each mobile platform has its own conventions, guidelines, and capabilities that you have to balance against your own brand and experience. You want your brand to shine through as much as possible, but you don't want to alienate your users or create an inconsistent experience from the rest of the platform.

With 500px, because our main focus is on the photos, we tried to make the rest of our UI as invisible as possible. This meant that we would try to adopt as many standard UI patterns from Android as possible, right down to the choice of Roboto as our standard typeface even though we use Helvetica in our brand (and on iOS). Other things that are unique to Android are things like the Action Overflow menu, which let us simplify our navigation structure compared to our iOS version.

What's next for this product?

There are big things in the works for 500px for Android; we are working hard to ensure that our mobile apps remain the best way to view and participate in the best photography in the world. Stay tuned!