01
OVERVIEW
Gallery Prints reimagines Samsung’s built-in Gallery app as more than just a viewer — it becomes a seamless photo printing and delivery platform. Inspired by Google Photos’ Prints, the service empowers users to select photos, choose print formats (albums, frames, canvas), and receive the finished products delivered to their doorstep — all from within the Gallery app.
With a 92% usage rate of Gallery on Galaxy devices in the U.S., this project leveraged Samsung’s native reach to tap into the ongoing demand for physical photo prints. As the sole designer in collaboration with the PM, I led everything from concept generation and user flow to UI design and third-party printing partner integration. This project reflects how I approach product design by aligning user needs with platform and business opportunities.
Product Planning
Concept Development
UX Flow Planning
Competitive service analysis, Samsung Gallery print needs and service opportunity definition, product selection-to-payment funnel planning, UX flow and edge case review, and IAP payment flow validation
Made for Samsung
Jul 2020 – Mar 2021
Internal concept development, paused due to organizational transition
02
DEMAND SIGNAL
Strong emotional value in physical photos
Research shows that 88% of users see meaningful value in having physical photos. This confirms that digital photos alone do not satisfy users’ emotional needs and that the sentimental value of printed photos is already well-established.
88%
Clear unmet desire for more physical prints
A significant portion of users — 75% — wish they had more printed photos. This reveals a strong latent demand and reinforces the core rationale for introducing a seamless printing experience within Samsung Gallery.
75%
Concern about losing digital memories
77% of users worry that they may one day lose access to their digital photos. This indicates that printed photos provide a sense of permanence and emotional security, making the message of memory preservation especially relevant.
77%
03
PERSONAS
Sophia Miller, 32
Freelance Illustrator
A pet lover who wants her dogs to be part of her everyday space — not just inside her phone.
Sophia lives with two dogs, Hari and Ari. She takes photos of them every day and enjoys decorating her home with printed pet photos.
Despite printing often, she feels the process of finding good services and ensuring print quality is overly complicated.
Uses a dedicated pet folder in the Galaxy Gallery app
Occasionally posts on Instagram, but strongly prefers having physical photocards and prints
Feels happy seeing her dogs’ photos displayed around her home — on walls, desks, and shelves
Goals
Print pet photos quickly and preserve everyday moments
Order frame-ready prints or canvas-style photos she can hang directly on her walls
Use features that automatically identify and recommend the best pet shots
Pain Points
Most photos are taken spontaneously on her phone, so everything lives in the Gallery
Burst photos create “selection fatigue,” making it hard to choose the best ones
Sensitive to color differences between screen and print
Decorative prints require higher quality, so resolution and fidelity are critical
Ryan Collins, 43
HR Specialist
A dad who wants his child’s smile beside him at work, even during long days at the office.
Ryan takes countless photos of his 4-year-old daughter but rarely prints them. He wants a quick, reliable way to turn a favorite moment into a frame-ready photo for work, but choosing the right image and ensuring good print quality feels too time-consuming.
Uses a dedicated “Kids” album in Galaxy Gallery
Has thousands of child photos but few printed
Wants a framed photo for his office desk and a poster-size print for home
Revisits old photos to see how fast his child is growing
Goals
Print child photos fast without extra steps
Get a desk-size, frame-ready print (4×6, 5×7, or small canvas)
Use automatic recommendations to find the best, sharpest photo from many duplicates
Pain Points
Nearly all photos live in his phone, captured spontaneously
Burst shots lead to selection overload
Needs reliable quality for a print that will sit visibly on his office desk
Busy schedule means he can’t spend long choosing or editing pictures
04
PROBLEM
Users want prints, but lack a clear starting point
Research shows that users highly value physical photos and want more of them.
However, most don’t know where to begin, revealing a clear gap between desire and action.
01
Digital photos don’t offer emotional permanence
Many users worry about losing access to their digital photos.
Physical prints provide emotional security and longevity that digital libraries cannot fully replace.
02
Existing mobile print workflows create too much friction
The current workflow requires downloading new apps, signing up, re-uploading photos, and waiting through long upload times—often restarting if the upload fails.
This fragmented flow creates a high barrier to entry.
03
Low trust in third-party printing services
Users express concerns about inconsistent print quality, delivery issues, and limited customer support from existing providers.
This reduces adoption and highlights the opportunity for a more trustworthy, Samsung-integrated solution.
04
05
DESIGN DIRECTION
Integrate printing directly into Samsung Gallery
Enable printing without switching apps or re-uploading photos
Simplify the entire flow
Design a fast, intuitive experience with minimal steps
Highlight emotional
and lasting value
Position prints as meaningful keepsakes that preserve memories
Leverage Samsung’s
brand trust
Use reliability and ecosystem consistency as a key differentiator
Prioritize high-demand products
Focus on photo books, framed prints, and greeting cards first
06
EXPERIENCE STRATEGY
Gallery Prints was designed as an extension of Samsung Gallery, not as a separate printing service
Samsung Gallery is a core app users already visit every day.
The key design challenge was not teaching a new service,
but making Gallery Prints feel like a natural continuation of the photo-browsing experience.
01
Users were already in Gallery
People were already browsing, organizing, and selecting meaningful photos in Samsung Gallery.
02
Printing intent emerges during photo browsing and selection
The motivation to print does not start from a separate app search.
It starts when users encounter a photo worth keeping.
03
Leaving Gallery too early would add friction and weaken emotional continuity
Moving users into a standalone service too early would create friction, extra learning, and emotional disconnection from the moment.
07
ENTRY PATHS
Designing Where Printing Naturally Begins
Gallery Prints needed to feel like a natural extension of Samsung Gallery, not a separate feature added onto it.
That made entry points more than access paths. They became a key part of shaping how printing could begin naturally within the existing Gallery experience.
Rather than focusing only on visibility, I looked for moments where printing would feel like a relevant next step in the user journey.
To evaluate each option, I used three criteria:
Contextual Relevance
Appears at a moment when printing feels naturally connected to what the user is already doing, such as viewing or selecting photos.
Discoverability
Is easy to notice without requiring extra effort or adding friction to the flow.
Continuity of Experience
Connects smoothly to Prints while preserving the familiar structure and feel of Samsung Gallery.
This approach helped define entry points not by where the feature could be promoted most, but by where the printing experience could begin most naturally.
Defining Entry Paths by User Selection
Users who have not selected a photo, users viewing a single image, and users selecting multiple photos each come with different intent and different expectations for what should happen next.
To reflect this, Gallery Prints was designed so that the same Order Print action in Gallery could lead directly into the most appropriate ordering path for each case.
This allowed actions already taken in Gallery to carry naturally into the printing flow, reducing unnecessary exploration and repeated decisions while creating a faster, smoother ordering experience.
01
No Photo Selected
When users entered without selecting any photos, the flow led to the Gallery Prints home rather than directly starting a specific order path. At this stage, users were less likely to have a clear product type or purchase intent in mind, so it was more appropriate to let them browse available print options and explore what best matched their needs.
Direct entry supports browsing and discovery.
02
Single Photo Selected
When users entered with a single photo selected, the flow needed to help them choose the most suitable product around that image. Instead of sending them directly into one fixed order type, the experience first asked what kind of print product they wanted, then guided them through size and style selection. This made it easier to explore formats such as photo books, canvas prints, metal prints, or wood prints starting from one chosen image.
Single-photo entry supports immediate print intent.
03
Multiple Photos Selected
When users entered with multiple photos selected, their intent was considered more defined.
Selecting several images at once suggested a stronger match with multi-photo products such as photo books rather than a single-image print format. For this reason, the flow reduced unnecessary intermediate steps and led users directly to the photo book order page.
This approach minimized the burden of making users reselect a product type after they had already completed the key step of choosing multiple photos.
Multi-photo entry supports batch ordering behavior.
Checkout Flow
Once users selected a print product, the next challenge was helping them complete the order without friction.
The payment flow was designed as a simple step-by-step sequence from Cart to Checkout to Order Confirmation, allowing users to review their selections, confirm essential information, and complete the purchase with clarity and confidence.
08
CONCEPT MOCKUPS
Screen concepts showing how Gallery Prints could extend the Samsung Gallery experience.
Although the product was not launched, these mockups were created to visualize the core flow, product structure, and interaction principles in a concrete and testable form.
09
REFLECTION
This project started from a simple observation: people already live with meaningful photos. I wanted printed photos of my dogs around my home, and my manager kept a framed photo of his daughter on his desk while his phone was full of family pictures. That made the opportunity clear, if Galaxy users already keep their most important memories in Samsung Gallery, printing should begin in that same context.
The hardest part of the project was not designing screens, but translating different user needs into a product structure that felt clear, flexible, and coherent. I spent a significant amount of time reviewing scenarios, identifying edge cases, and refining flows so that different entry conditions and printing intents could lead to the right next step without making the experience feel fragmented.
This project also pushed me to think beyond UI. Because the service depended on payments, fulfillment, and third-party print partners, I had to consider not only usability, but also operational feasibility and quality assurance. I reviewed sample print outputs, thought through how users would judge quality in physical form, and worked through how the service would connect to external vendors and business constraints. In a photo-printing service, the experience is not complete when the user places an order—it is only successful when the final printed result feels worth keeping.
Although the project was discontinued when the team shifted to Gaming Hub, it remains one of the projects that most shaped how I think about product design. It reinforced for me that strong product decisions come from real user context, that features must be organized around intent rather than added in isolation, and that designing a good experience means designing the whole service ecosystem—not just the screen.
