Craft
Notes on the morning after
The develop moment is the only part of Capsule anyone screenshots. Here is what we learned building it, including two versions we threw away.
A film develops at a time the host picks. Almost everyone picks the next morning, which means the reveal happens to a room full of people who are individually, quietly, slightly hungover.
That is a very particular audience and it shaped every decision.
The two versions we threw away
The first reveal was a grid. All two hundred photos at once, laid out neatly. It tested terribly — people scrolled for four seconds and closed it. A grid says "here is your data". Nobody wants their night as data.
The second was a slideshow with music. It tested well for about nine seconds and then people wanted to skip, and once you want to skip a thing, you resent it.
What we shipped
The photographs come out as a stack, face down, and develop one at a time as you move through them — with the seal breaking first, physically, at the top. It is slower than a grid and faster than a slideshow, and crucially you are the one moving it.
Median time in the reveal screen went from four seconds to just under six minutes. That is the whole feature.