Social Messaging App Time Will Tell

Have you ever written a letter to your future self?

About the client

Have you ever written a letter to your future self? Or sent wish cards to your friends with the request to open then on their birthday only. Have you ever managed to keep yourself from opening those letters until the appointed date? Our client definitely struggled to ensure his greeting cards would be a surprise. That's how the idea of Time Will Tell app was born.

Our Expertise

Mobile App Development

Scope

Discovery phase
Product development
Maintenance
QA

Vertical

Social Network

Key results

900 development hours

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The Challenge

The client asked us to create a mobile app that would send messages but keep them locked until the appointed date. Once he specified the requirements we recalled time capsules and felt we just couldn’t miss the opportunity to bring this idea to life.

The application also has a second more unobvious purpose.

It derives from the naming – Time Will Tell. The app essentially allows you to seal the most notable moments in the time capsule and give them a fresh look on the appointed date. Because some events require additional efforts to be accepted. And, frankly speaking, we all have such moments when we need time to sort things out.

Fortunately, bad memories fade away while happy ones prevail over time. That’s why we were exceptionally proud to create the app with the power of time on its side. The app that cures all wounds and carries happy moments through time and space.

The Solution

Use cases

Message capsulation

This is the main function of the app. It allows users to create a custom photo or video message, set the time of activation, seal it and send to contacts you want. When the time comes the message will be unsealed so the recipient could read the letter.

Create message

The first screen is split in half. From here you can either create a text message with a photo or supplement your text message with a short video. You can choose to upload content from your gallery or capture it with camera.

Add people

Now you can simply pick people you want to send the time capsule from your contact book. Time Will Tell allows sending capsulated messages via email. We also enabled the ability to send capsules via iMessage in case user doesn’t know the email address.

Message delivery

The app will generate a unique link for the capsulated message upon its creation. This link will be sent to contacts you choose via email or iMessage. If your contacts have the app installed, they will simply open it. Otherwise, they will be redirected to the application page in App Store.

Monetization

Once the message is sent it can’t be changed neither by the user or the recipient. But sometimes we desperately want to add something on top of what’s written. Or you may simply want to delete the capsule before it will be unlocked.

In such cases, you’ll be required to make an in-app purchase. The payment will be required if you want to send two messages to one recipient. Because, well… everyone should pay the price to influence the course of time.

Push notification

We thought it would be a shame if your greetings came late. That’s why we enabled push notification to make sure that users will read their messages at the appointed day.

There are three cases that trigger notifications:

When the message is activated. Recipient of the message gets notification.
When the message was sent. In this case, if user has the app, the notification will appear.
When the message becomes active. User that has sent the message gets notification.

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Wireframes

We built the app around one main function – message encapsulation. That’s why we kept it as minimalistic as possible. Time Will Tell features only three tabs:

Capsulate message: The first and foremost screen, that is displayed after login.
Profile: Contains basic info about user: Username, Phone Number, Email, etc.
Messages: Contains all messages sent and accepted by user.

The Result

Design

Logo

By the time we got to logo, client already had a vision of how it should look like. He provided us with a rough sketch of what he was thinking about. Basically, the concept played around abbreviation of app’s name – Time Will Tell – TWT.

We suggested several examples of how these letters could be incorporated into a logo.

Eventually, we decided to take alarm clock as the main character for the logo. Our client really liked how it followed with the application’s main purpose. In addition, the alarm clock fits perfectly with the letters inside.

General style

Icons of tab bar

The client asked us to adhere to flat design principles. He also provided us with design references, so we found a common ground right from the start. In particular, we have created linear styled icons according to the client’s preferences.

Colour palette

In order to design a color scheme, we thought about the feeling people usually experience while reading greetings from the loved ones. We realized that our app should convey the exact same emotions. Therefore, we chose “happy” gradient from yellow to orange as a color scheme for Time Will Tell.