Objective
The archive needed a way for visitors to find relevant stories, but a normal list of filters felt too much like browsing a database. I wanted the filtering process to retain the reflective and playful quality of the rest of the project. The objective was therefore to transform the archive categories into a correspondence activity that asked visitors to consider what kind of story they wanted to receive.
Process Breakdown
Beginning with Family Closeness
The first stage asks the visitor to choose the postcard image that best represents how close or distant they currently feel from their family. Each image depicts a different amount of physical distance between figures, allowing the user to reflect visually rather than select a more clinical relationship label.
Selecting the Narrative Focus
The visitor then chooses a stamp representing which part of a story they want to focus on. These categories include who, what, where, when, why and how. Turning these categories into stamps helps them feel like elements being added to the postcard rather than technical filters.
Choosing the Story Tone
The final category is represented through paper patterns. Simpler patterns correspond to clearer or lighter emotional tones, while denser and more complicated patterns suggest more complex or difficult stories. This gives the visitor another way to choose the emotional quality of what they are about to read.
Sending the Postcard
Once all three choices have been made, they are assembled into a complete postcard. The visitor can review the selections before sending it. The archive then returns stories matching the chosen relationship distance, narrative focus and tone, presenting them as letters received in response.
Balancing Playfulness and Clarity
Because metaphorical interactions can sometimes make simple functions confusing, I added clear labels, progress indicators, back buttons and a review screen. The correspondence theme should make the experience more engaging without hiding what each choice actually does.
Key Takeaways
- The postcard sequence turns archive filtering into a small reflective activity instead of treating it as a purely technical function.
- Breaking the categories into stages keeps the interface manageable, although direct instructions are still necessary to prevent the metaphor from becoming confusing.
Reflection
- I like that the visitor is asked to consider their own family position before reading another person's story.
- The strongest part of the mechanic is that all three filters feel connected through one visual system.
- The main design challenge was making the process playful without adding unnecessary effort to a relatively simple archive search.