Cleared App
Present Your Product
The goal is to create a product, find target market, and create an advertisement for it.
Context
This was an entrepreneurship project at Michigan State University. There were no official roles, so whoever stood up to the task would end up being a leader.
An App That Simplifies Your Life
I thought of this app because I struggled with the problem.
As a student, notifications overwhelm and confuse. They pop up randomly and remove your focus. Notifications come from 100's of different platforms.
But what if you had it all in one place, and it only tells you what is relevant?
The Cleared app will remove all notifications, and replace it with summaries of actionable steps at the right time, not randomly.
How This Makes People Feel
Target Market: Busy College Students
Feeling: Powerful, Sharp, No B.S., Progress, Clarity
How do we get there?
Music: Powerful and bold
Noise: An annoying persistence of ping noises and motion sound transitions
Spectacle: Display the simple and instant results. The music will amplify this feeling.
Contrast: Have a stressful situation happen to make the solution look really good.
Why I Chose Just The Phone
The problem people face is on their phone.
Having actors being sad is not related to the issue. When people see the overwhelming notifications, then the stress feeling kicks in. I am simulating exactly what someone sees: just their phone.
The theme is simple.
No distracting elements is part of the brand. I also want people to pay attention to the screen.
Making Fake Notifications
I got my team to text me non-stop so I could get tons of messages. And for the app notification, I changed someone's name on my phone to "Cleared" and asked them to send the message.
The Irony of Apple Copying My Idea
Funny enough, a few months later, Apple introduced their AI notification summary feature. To my surprise, this feature is not useful, and I still find myself going through countless notifications.
What is Apple missing?
Actionable steps, focus on important an urgent messages, aware of patterns and deadlines. There is just no synthesis of the information, just a headline that makes you need to read the notification.
That means this app is still possible, and can outperform what exists now. Perhaps if I develop this, it would be bought up by Apple, and integrated within their system.
Results
Just a small moment was presented, yet the tool's power is obvious. Did the video make you feel like you could live like a boss? "Understand Instantly" Are words that are simple, but describe the exact aggression and feeling of success I was looking to inspire.
What I Learned
Sound transitions create energy. Adding sound makes things feel heavier, more intense.
Creating a feeling matters a lot. The video could be poor quality, but as long as it makes people feel something, people will care about it.
What to Do Next Time
Emphasis on picture quality. Either better lighting or a better camera will fix this.
New Techniques
Using sound to make transitions
Using slide in transitions from objects moving fast