Project Overview

Background

Mammalz Emotes Project was developed to increase community engagement and personalize the Mammalz experience on its current app.

Objective

Design 5 animal emotes that represent different emotions/reactions. Design both full-body and face-only versions. Emotes will be viewed at about 24x24px so design for small views.

Outcome

Mammalz saw an increase in user participation in a web live stream chat when implementing the emotes.

Role

Lead graphic designer
UI designer

Team

Additional graphic and web designer

Part 1: Design

The Mammalz startup team chose which 5 animal and emotion emotes. This descision was based on common community platform post reactions.

1. Meerkat

Emotion/Reaction: saying hello

2. Hyena

Emotion/Reaction: laughing, lol, LMAO

3. Octopus

Emotion/Reaction: love and support

4. Frog

Emotion/Reaction: sad

5. Potoo

Emotion/Reaction: surprised, wow, amazed

Creating the Mammalz Emotes Style

We decided the first emote we would create to determine the emote styling would be the laughing hyena. It was the most detailed animal and would be a challenge to designing small.

Sketches

sketch of hyena laughing sitting, head facing sideways

sketch of hyena laughing on its back with its head back

sketch of hyena laughing facing the ground

Styling

After intital feedback and choosing the two perspectives we would continue with, I moved to designing different style options.

Gaming

laughing hyena head - gamer platform style

Kid Friendly

Clean

laughing hyena head with black ha ha ha behind it

laughing hyena with black ha ha ha hend it

Iterating for size considerations

Once I presented the styles to the Mammalz team, we chose to go forward with the Clean style, optimizing it for a small scale.

laughing hyena with purple ha ha ha above it

Creating style guidelines

We were adding another graphic designer/web designer to this project so I put together style guidelines for her. These guidelines would also help other future graphic designer that would add to the Mammalz emote collection.

Additional emotes

Each emote went through a review process to make sure it was optimized for a small scale view.

Meerkat: saying hello

seductive meerkat with the word hey in blue next to it

Octopus: love and support

red octopus making a heart with two of its tenticals

octopus with blue heart bubbles around it

Frog: sad

Designed by Avery Finden

sad green frog with single tear coming from left eye

full body of sad green frog creating a puddle from its tears

Potoo: surprised, wow, amazed

Designed by Avery Finden

potoo bird head looking amazed with mouth open and eyes wide

potoo bird wings stretched out, mouth open, with WOW written in green behind its head

Part 2: Implementation

The next step was to implement them into the current Mammalz web and mobile app. Users would be able to use these emotes in photo/video comments and live streaming chat.

Development

Due to unforeseen coding difficulties in the Mammalz mobile app, emotes were only implemented for use on the web platform. However, users could still view the emotes on the mobile.

Results

Mammalz saw an increase in user participation in a web live stream chat when implementing the emotes. We also received positive user feedback regarding the enjoyment the emotes were bringing them. Emotes are used in Mammalz branding and community forums to this day.

Next Steps

This project uncovered issues with the Mammalz backend for both the mobile app and web platforms that would eventually lead to the Mammalz 2.0 project, an entire revamp of the design and development of the Mammalz platform. However, the future of emotes was still discussed and holds up to this day.

1. More Emotes

Creating additional sets of universal emotes to be used throughout the Mammalz platform.

2. Custom Emotes

Allowing creators to upload their own emotes to be used exclusively on their content’s chat and comments.

3. Event Emotes

Creating exclusive emotes for special events on the Mammalz platform that user can unlock by attending the event.