Sharing. Made Simple.

Shared was a hosting service that allowed people to upload massive amounts of files from anywhere, for free. What made Shared stand out was the wide array of file types that it supported whether it was images, music, videos, documents, and any other file types. 

Flowchart

A simple flowchart to reference all the screens and keep things organized.

Web Design

We wanted the design to feel light like a cloud – after all we were creating a cloud hosting platform. The design features a white and minimalist background. To get the light and airy feel, we made the typography light grey. A lot of the elements were also light grey with grey gradients for a soft feel. Finally we added a pop of blue for accent coloring.

The dashboard is divided into three areas. (1) The left-hand panel for viewing files, folders, and bandwidth usage. (2) The top control panel to share, delete, search and move files. (3) The main masonry grid which can also be be toggled to view as a list.

Web Redesign

After some time, we felt that the interface could use a facelift and some redesign. First, the navigation bar took on a dark grey color to improve hierarchy and separate the dashboard. The left-hand panel replaced file types with individual folders. Also, storage usage was displayed in addition to bandwidth usage. The control panel became tighter and more organized; this helped clean up the interface drastically. The masonry grid itself became tighter and more organized with less white space. Finally, color file types replaced grey file types for a friendlier feel.

Mobile Design

The website called for a responsive design since the platform was going to be a web app instead of a mobile app. Working with the smallest screen possible, the iPhone 5s, I was able to create responsive designs that simplified the user experience further. The design is intended to give weightlessness to the app alluding to a cloud. This was achieved using white backgrounds with pops of light blue.

Branding

The final logo design for Shared.com in light and dark options for various backgrounds. The typography features a minimalist feel with soft and smooth curves to compliment the blue cloud. The cloud itself is a reference to “cloud hosting” which is the primary function of the Shared.com service. It also features soft and smooth curves to give a general lightness to the logo design.

Marketing

The marketing strategy included a combination of email newsletter campaigns and display ads. I was in charge of creating the marketing page for collecting emails, email newsletters and display ads to ultimately drive traffic to the website. Once the emails were collected, I designed the newsletters using Mailchimp in a strategic effort to attract users. To attract even more users, I designed display ads in 728×90 and 300×250 formats with high click-through rates that resulted in a successful marketing campaign.