Launching Miigen's digital memory hub from vision to MVP

Miigen – Library of Life is a digital legacy platform which was designed and developed by Exline Labs. There we provided expert UX consultancy to ensure Miigen’s platform delivers an intuitive and seamless experience for users at any age range and different technical abilities. The core objective of this web-based platform is to help people around the world preserve and share their life stories, memories, and personal experiences digitally. In simpler terms, memories and life stories can be preserved in multimedia format. Consequently, a user can use Miigen to document their journeys and milestones, ensuring his or her memories are passed down through generations.

Other than those above-mentioned personal storytelling features, Miigen also offers an advertising space for individuals and businesses. Most importantly, advertisers can advertise with precision, using location-based targeting to reach relevant audiences worldwide.

Memory creators, memory consumers and advertisers are the target audience of Miigen. All these 3 categories get benefits via this digital legacy platform.  For example memory creators can document their memories and life stories and preserve them for generations. Memory consumers can refer to the documented memories and life experiences and learn from them. When considering the advertisers, they have the potential for reaching specific location based audiences.

For Memory Creators:

• Anyone is capable of writing and sharing life stories with a simple, user-friendly text editor
  
  
• The capability of uploading photos and audio clips to spice up memories
  
  
• Organizing memories by categories (e.g., Family, Travel)
  
  
• Tagging memories with specific locations (country, state, city)
  
  
• Securely storing all memories in the cloud storage
  
  

For Everyone (Public View):

• Browsing a global feed of stories
  
  
• Filtering memories based on category and location
  
  
• The capability of searching for specific topics or stories
  
  

For Advertisers:

• Creating targeted ads with images and text
  
  
• The capability of choosing locations for precise audience targeting
  
  
• Managing ad campaigns with a simple, user-friendly interface

We at Exline Labs strategically designed the Miigen platform with a clean, modern, and responsive layout that reflects the brand blending our custom UI design expertise. We created a consistent look across the entire site via  using Garamond and Hanken Grotesk fonts and a blue–orange–white color palette . Furthermore, we integrated a custom design system to ensure accessibility and style consistency. As per our UX consultancy guide, we started with low-fidelity wireframes to map structure and flow. And then we moved to high-fidelity mockups for the final design. As a responsible team of experts we offered multiple rounds of revisions as per the client’s feedback, including updates to ad placements and filters.

The Miigen platform was developed possessing a clear goal of offering a simple, scalable space for sharing life stories. Our team of developers first built a solid database to manage users, memories, and locations. We used React, TypeScript, and Vite, to create a fast, user-friendly site so that users can easily write, upload photos or audio, and browse stories. Each and every feature was planned and designed to feel intuitive and engaging.

Our prime focus was on delivering high-level performance, security, and a smooth user experience. Moreover, we wanted to transform Miigen into a secure, super fast, future proof and easy-to- use platform for every user around the world. Therefore, we strategically chose the tools to gain the expected outcomes.

The following are the tools and technologies we chose and the reasons behind our choice. 

Frontend (User Interface)

As per our research, it was essential to build an interface that feels fast, modern, and easy to navigate. In order to meet those requirements, we utilized a combination of three powerful frontend tools as follows:

• React: Since Miigen is a digital legacy platform, there was a massive weight on creating highly interactive user interfaces(UIs). Therefore, we used a flexible JavaScript framework for creating user interfaces. Consequently, the users could create, view and explore life stories experiencing smoother user journeys ensuring higher user satisfaction.
  
  
• Inertia.js: Initially, we planned to offer a fast, single-page experience for the Miigen users to maximize user experience. The core idea was to build this digital legacy platform fast as an app while running as a website. There we utilized Inertia.js which is a modern web development tool. Basically,  Inertia.js functions as a bridge between the front-end (what users see) and the back-end (where the data houses).
  
  
• Tailwind CSS: Tailwind CSS is a modern styling tool that is perfect for creating clean, and mobile-responsive layout within a shorter period of time. Thanks to this super efficient tool we were able to develop the user interfaces simple, intuitive, and visually appealing across all screen sizes.
  
  

Frontend (User Interface)

Utilizing React, Inertia.js, and Tailwind CSS, we built a responsive, fast, and modern interface. The technology integration collectively played a huge role to make Miigen a seamless, and mobile-friendly platform especially for even first-time users.

Backend (Business Logic)

Miigen is a platform running on Laravel, a flexible and secure web development framework. Basically, Laraval is perfect for building web apps. Laravel was the ideal backend choice for Miigen, as it offers built-in security, fast development tools, along with a scalable foundation. Furthermore, the clean structure of this web development framework speeded up the launching process of Miigen as an MVP.

Data Management

When considering a digital legacy platform, it is all about data and content. There we had to strategically pick a database management system as a wrong choice can make the entire platform slower. That is why, we utilized MySQL to store all structured data such as user profiles, memories, categories, and locations. MySQL is great for organizing large amounts of data without lagging the platform.

Media Storage

As Miigen is a digital legacy platform, there should be a sustainable media storage solution to store the user-uploaded photos and audio clips. We utilized Amazon S3 cloud storage as the media storage solution ensuring that media files are safe, load fast. Most importantly, Amazon S3 cloud storage has the scalability when the user base grows.

User Login & Security

In order to ensure high-level security, session-based login was implemented for users. Moreover, we implemented Laravel Sanctum for secure API access. Consequently, we could offer a safe and smooth sign-in experience for users and prepare the system for potential mobile app integration.

We, at Exline Labs successfully delivered a scalable, secure, and user-friendly digital legacy platform for Miigen. As emphasized in the above, Miigen possesses a massive user base that comprises non tech users. Even though it was an ultra level challenge to develop this digital legacy platform in a way that they can easily use, our team of experts was able to make that happen. 

That is why, this project becomes a high-level example of how we combine our UX consultancy expertise, along with our custom UI design skills, and custom MVP development capability to create meaningful digital experiences.

Whether it is a fresh redesign or a new platform build, Exline Labs offers expert website design for small businesses in the UK with the objective of helping them grow online with confidence. We are not limited to the UK. Our end-to-end website design, development, and digital platform solutions are available for a global clientele.