Jean Luo

message and we did a bunch of work on the engineering side and Bobby invented a new way of sending images very quickly which at the time was like a big breakthrough because sending a you know an image at the time took a minute or something on your phone and with snapchat it took seconds so I think when you can really understand what something is trying to achieve and understand its purpose then the design kind of flows from there

Professional would be a good word.

It's so important for people to feel comfortable expressing themselves on Snapchat.

And if you take yourself too seriously, it's very hard to feel comfortable sending an image in the moment, right?

And one of the things that we were trying to do with Snapchat is fundamentally change the nature of how people thought about photography.

So prior to Snapchat, every photo you ever took was designed to be saved forever.

So you actually didn't take them very often.

You only took photos at special events.

I mean, it's hard to imagine that this was the case, you know, 15, 20 years ago, but photography was really about saving life's most important moments.

Right.

And that meant that the tools for photography were really different.

You really needed great lighting and the perfect framing and maybe a portrait effect or something like that.

And with Snapchat, we were trying to change the entire nature of the camera and what its core purpose was.

And in fact, the majority use case of the camera today is communication.

which is crazy to think.

In a 15-year period of time, people went from mostly using cameras to save important moments to mostly using their camera to talk with other people.

And part of that transition was creating an app that didn't take itself too seriously so that you didn't feel like you were in a portrait studio like a normal camera, that you felt like you were in a place you could just talk casually with your friends, which is really what Snapchat is all about.

So a lot of the design choices and the playful colors and those sorts of things are about creating a more casual atmosphere where you

feel comfortable being creative, not that you have to pose for the perfect photo.

I love that.