Customer experience: Comparison between the experience of Miaoya Camera (AI) and offline photography

This article compares and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of Miaoya Camera and offline photography from the perspective of user experience. The article considers multiple perspectives throughout to help readers have a more three-dimensional understanding of the two models. It is recommended for readers who are interested in photography, artificial intelligence or user experience.

The recent development of AI is refreshing our cognition every day, and artificial intelligence has penetrated into every corner of our lives. Among them, the emergence of Miaoya Camera has undoubtedly triggered a discussion about photography and artificial intelligence.

The emergence of Miaoya Camera gives us the opportunity to re-examine offline business models and customer experiences of companies such as Hippocampus and Tianzhenlan.

This article will compare MiaoYa Camera and the offline photography industry from the perspective of customer experience, and provide an in-depth interpretation based on personal opinions.

Enjoy～

1. The Spear and Shield of the Magic Duck Camera

First of all, the emergence of Miaoya Camera makes photography more convenient. Miaoya Camera comes from Alibaba and is an internal entrepreneurial project of Youku.

The steps to use are as follows:

Step 1. Open the MiaoYa Camera applet. First, you need to upload a front-facing photo, and then add at least 20 photos.

Step 2. In this step, the system will prompt users whether the photos meet the requirements and the quality of the uploaded photos exceeds a certain percentage. Users can choose to add more photos to make the "digital avatar" more effective.

Step 3. After uploading the photos, users need to follow the Miaoya Camera official account and complete the payment process. The standard price is 29.9 yuan, and there is a limited time special offer of 9.9 yuan. Once the purchase is successful, refunds are not supported.

Users only need to upload their personal multi-scene, all-round photos to generate artistic photos. This method saves a series of links such as makeup, shooting, photo selection, and photo editing in offline experience, greatly saving users' time and energy.

However, this approach also brings some problems.

Due to the lack of offline experience, users' recognition of the finished product may be reduced.

This is because every link in the offline experience is a process of building memory points , and these memory points are missing during the use of the MiaoYa camera.

Secondly, although AI-generated photos are novel, they may also arouse users' doubts.

When someone asks, "Is this really you?"

Users may feel a sense of unreality because they know that they have not personally experienced the scenes in the photos and that there are many fictional parts in the photos.

This was verified in the research paper "Image Credibility Analysis with Effective Domain Transferred Deep Networks".

The authors point out that fake images are often more attractive and visually impactful than real images. This may cause users to question AI-generated photos because they feel that this is not their true self because they have not experienced the scenes in the photos. This lack of identification may cause users to question AI-generated photos.

Photography itself still places great emphasis on the entire photography service experience process. If the sense of participation is eliminated, the experience will be greatly reduced.

However, this does not prevent people from using the MiaoYa camera, as novelty is a major factor in attracting users.

However, when the novelty wears off, the problem that MiaoYa Camera needs to solve is how to build the user's perceived gap between AI-generated photos and their actual experience.

On this issue, I think MiaoYa Camera can deliberately add some links and elements that can enhance personal participation perception in the process of generating photos, and also allow users to add some proprietary attribute values.

In this way, even if the novelty wears off, users may still use these photos in real life and work scenarios.

2. User reviews of the Miaoya camera

According to some reviews on the Internet, the user experience of MiaoYa Camera has both positive and negative feedback.

Positive feedback mainly focused on its innovative AI technology and low price.

Users believe that the photos generated by the AI ​​of Miaoya Camera are comparable to those of professional photography studios. For example, the price of Hippocampus and Innocent Blue is hundreds of dollars, and you can only choose one photo, and you can't give the negatives, etc. Miaoya Camera only costs 9.9 yuan to generate a set of professional photos, which is very attractive to many users.

In addition, the operation of MiaoYa Camera is also quite convenient, and users can use it directly on WeChat.

However, negative feedback mainly focuses on its service quality and user experience. Some users reported that if the uploaded photos are not of high quality , the generated results will be poor .

Additionally, the background selection is rather limited, and some of the generated photos look out of place.

Some users also reported that if the problem of long queues caused by computing power cannot be solved well, it will lead to a lot of negative reviews.

In addition, some users commented on the MiaoYa Camera WeChat mini program that "it's not a good idea to charge without knowing the effect, and it's really not a good idea to charge", "you should let everyone see the approximate effect, even if it's just one photo, all with watermarks. It's not reasonable to ask them to pay before they can see anything."

3. Response methods of offline photography industry

For offline businesses, such as Hippocampus and Tianzhenlan, the emergence of Miaoya Camera has undoubtedly brought an impact. What these companies need to think about is how to accept and adapt to the development of AI, and how to improve user experience with the help of AI.

They can also consider introducing AI technology to provide more personalized and efficient services, and at the same time, through offline experience, provide and strengthen the perception and memory that users cannot obtain from AI. For example:

1) Introducing AI technology: When Tianzhenlan received a 10 million yuan round of financing in 2019, it announced that "AI technology empowers development" was at an important strategic level. They recognized the potential of AI technology in improving efficiency and quality, and began to introduce AI technology in aspects such as photo editing.

2) High-quality service: Companies such as Hippocampus and Tianzhenlan meet users' needs for faster and better photos by providing a full range of makeup, photography and photo editing services. Each step of their service process has clear standards and processes to reduce errors and omissions and ensure that every customer can receive high-quality service.

3) Meeting diverse needs: Although AI cameras can provide convenient services, their service content is relatively single and it is difficult to meet the diverse needs of users. Offline businesses can meet users' needs for faster and better photography by providing a full range of makeup, photography and photo editing services.

4) Emphasis on real experience: Although AI cameras can provide convenient services, the real experience provided by offline shooting cannot be replaced by AI. After using Miaoya Camera, some users said that they no longer need to go to places such as Hippocampus and Tianzhenlan in the short term, but they also realized that although the photos generated by AI cameras are beautiful, they lack the experience of real shooting.

4. Final Thoughts

In general, the emergence of Miaoya Camera undoubtedly provides us with a new perspective on photography and artificial intelligence. The convenience and novelty it brings have attracted a large number of users, but it also brings some challenges.

I recently heard that it will be difficult for large companies to turn around in the new era, and a large number of opportunities for innovation at the application layer will appear in flexible small and micro enterprises. For medium and large offline enterprises, how to accept and adapt to the development of AI and how to improve user experience with the help of AI will be the problems they need to face.

The future development of MiaoYa Camera will depend on several key factors, including how to continue to attract and retain users after the novelty wears off.

Technical advantages, including the superiority of algorithm models and the adequacy of computing power, will determine its competitiveness in the field of AI photography. Secondly, user experience, especially the quality of interactive design, will also directly affect its market acceptance.

Whether a stable business model can be formed in the long run depends on the development of user acceptance and whether they will continue to pay for it.

above.

Author: GuoFu Long

Source: WeChat public account: "Long Guofu (ID: guofu1024)"