Bridging Distances, Incapsulating Memories
InCap
Ever laugh at those cringe-worthy photos from your high school yearbook? Or wish you could bottle up memories from that epic trip with friends?
Meet InCap, the app that turns your memories into an adventure. Create time capsules with friends (or family or whoever you want), fill them with photos, notes, and surprises, and then seal them away for a big reveal later. Read to see how It's like sending your future self a treasure chest of good times.
We realized that people love the idea of sharing their memories with those who were part of them. People associate different mediums with memory—photos and videos are the obvious ones, but we also discovered more unique approaches. For instance, one person created playlists for every country they traveled to, tying music to their travel memories in a special way.
Even the smallest, seemingly irrelevant memories and spontaneous reminders were things people enjoyed. It's always fun to send a silly photo to a friend out of nowhere. However, reconnecting with friends you’ve lost touch with can be difficult and sometimes awkward to initiate.
In my own experience, for instance. My phone's gallery is filled with photos of my high school friends, many of whom I no longer speak to. I could never bring myself to delete those pictures; they capture moments of laughter, adventure, and growing up. Despite this nostalgia, I hesitate to reach out and share these memories with them, unsure of what to talk about.
The Story behind the Idea
Even though I try and think of a problem to solve before I start thinking of designing an app, InCap was different. It was a project I had a lot of fun doing. It all started on a Miro board. We (Yuma, Tangmo, Resha, Yufeng and I) put a bunch of random words that seemed interesting on a blank canvas and started drawing connections between them. After sorting through what looked like a spider's web, we landed on the word MEMORY. If you look at the mind map, it's pretty hard to spot and wasn't even one of our main ideas, but somehow it ended up being the one we all drew lines to.
But memory is such an arbitrary word. It is hard to think of an app around it. The first things that came to my mind were one of those brain training apps. But they are pretty boring. I did like the idea of memory, but didn't know if it would result in anything remotely interesting.
So we did a bit of research. Went down a rabbit hole of things like false memories and lizard people, and substantial stuff like what triggers memories? We did interviews, read a bunch of articles and tried to make sense of it.
I also remember making a time capsule in the 5th grade or so with my then best friend. We buried it in my front yard, and drew a map. I lost the map, also lost touch with her. She is in the states now, I am in Australia. My front yard, and hopefully the time capsule in it are in India.
All five of us, and every one we asked had a similar experience. Which is how we came to the challenge of "Rekindle meaningful connections through revisiting shared memories." This and a lot more ideation later, we came to the idea of a digital time capsule, that works as a ticket to talk and works irrespective of international borders and timezones.
The Design
Paper Prototype
The design started out as scribbles, on a sheet of paper. That we then combined, refined and traced on a whiteboard for iterations.
The paper prototype helped us nail down the main screens of the design and clarify the functionality we wanted to bring to life. It also focused our vision and expectations for what we aimed to create.
Our goal was a clean and intuitive UI with a single core functionality: the ability to create a time capsule and follow its journey through time. We envisioned an app that wasn’t just useful but also playful and fun to use. Despite its limited functionality, we didn't want you to forget about it. So, we made it vibrant and engaging, ensuring every interaction is a delight.
Hi-Fi Prototype
The app is simple. On the Home Page, you’ll find icons of your friends, who you can message anytime, and your capsules, both past and present. When you decide to create a new capsule, you can invite friends to join in. The app sends a link to them, allowing them to join your shared capsule. As the creator, you choose the type of capsule. There are three to choose from: a box you bury in the earth for 6 months, a bottle you toss in the ocean for 12 months, and a rocket that journeys through outer space for 18 months.
After inviting friends and customising your capsule, you can add all kinds of media to it—photos, scribbles, voice notes, or songs—anything you want to keepsake. Each friend gets their own mood board, so they don’t see what you add, and you don’t see what they add. Once everything is set, you seal the capsule. There’s no going back; you send it off, or launch it, in the case of the rocket.
How The App Works
When the timer finally counts down to zero, you open the capsule and see everything your friends added. The mood board you see is a collective collage of all the contributions, a beautiful blend of shared memories. You can even sort by person to see what each friend added individually.
To make it even more interactive, you can comment on the different pieces within the moodboard. This becomes your ticket to talk, sparking conversations and reminiscing about the good times. It’s a joyful way to reconnect and celebrate the moments that matter most.
One of the main challenges we faced while conceptualizing the app was how to make the time period between creating a capsule and opening it more engaging. The wait was too long for users to remember the app or even keep it installed on their devices.
This led us to the idea of storytelling and widgets. Each capsule would have a specially crafted story delivered over time to keep users engaged. We would use widgets to remind users of the journey their time capsule was taking. For instance, instead of a widget simply saying "300 days left," it would tell you that your rocket passed Mars today.
To keep things fun and exciting, we also introduced dynamic events. For example, your rocket might hit an asteroid, triggering an event like a photo drop. These narrative updates and interactive elements ensure that the journey of your time capsule remains engaging and memorable, building anticipation until the day it is finally opened.
Challenges
This app was my team's project for the Apple Foundation Program @UTS. We coded the entire thing (as much of it as we could in 8 days) in Xcode using SwiftUI. Here is a walkthrough of our journey and the app’s features.
InCap is a fun and unique way to preserve and share memories, making it easier to reconnect with friends and relive the good times. By creating shared capsules with friends, adding different kinds of media, and then revealing everything in one big moment, the app turns reminiscing into an exciting adventure. The moodboards and comments make it easy and fun to talk about those memories again. InCap isn't just an app; it's a way to celebrate memories and the connections they create, making sure the moments we love are never forgotten.
Fin.
