C-Me App

Connecting the United Arab Emirates

About the project

C’Me is an app from Etisalat that brings more fun to your communication experience. It has innovative new features with a secure address book, high definition voice and video calling over WiFi, rich messaging with an exciting video window, and even integrates your favorite social networks - all into one simple app.

With C’Me you can use not only your Smartphone but also your tablet to make calls! The C’Me app lets users call contacts from their address books, local or international, and can be downloaded on both smartphones and tablets.

Users can make 60 minutes of free video calls using their devices to any other C’Me app user over Etisalat’s mobile network or UAE wi-fi under the launch offer. The offer also includes two months of free C’Me data. Available in both Arabic and English, for both Android or IOS, C’Me is exclusive to Etisalat’s mobile users, prepaid or postpaid, along with business and government users.

The problem

Etisalat, the biggest telecom from the UAE saw a market opportunity to compete with already established communication apps like Skype, WhatsApp, and Facebook messenger and decided to make an app with better functionalities and pricing, exclusive for their customers.

Main features of the app

We built an innovative wave window that lets users see how friends react to the chat in real-time. The chat supports recording voice messages and sending photos, videos, locations, and contacts. Users feel closer and see who they are talking to with C’Me’s high-quality video calling. Also, the app features a full set of animated stickers, Twitter and Facebook Integration.

The tablet version

The app was also created for tablets, in both android and ios platforms. All the functionalities are replicated, taking into consideration the large screen size. New ways of interaction were created and new elements added.

Apple watch

I created also a user interface for the apple watch taking into consideration the main features of the app into the small screen size.

The website

I designed a fully responsive website to promote the app and talk about its features. The website is the gateway for users to understand the app and click to download it.

Animated stickers

I contacted Fran Solo, a very talented illustrator from Spain to create and animate a set of 20 original stickers, to be used exclusively on the app. We created a camel and brainstormed a lot together about funny situations that this camel could do. After a couple of brainstorms and lots of client feedback, Fran turned all the sketches into vector animations. He did an amazing work.

The ux process

Before defining the art direction and designing all the screens, I created all the user journey flows as wireframes and had endless meetings with the product owners and the core development team ( that was in china ) to define app functionalities and best-used practices. This phase lasted at least 1 month.

After all the wireframes and journeys were approved, I started an exploration phase to define the visual design of the app. This phase lasted another month, and it took several design proposals and numerous studies to reach a version that everyone liked and thought adequate to the product. After having 6 master visuals approved, I them started leading junior designers to replicate the defined art direction for all the other screens.

The outcome

Etisalat was very happy with the final designs and the overall product direction. The app was downloaded more than 1 million times and received positive reviews and extensive media coverage during the launch.

My role on the project

I was hired as a contractor by a company called The Mobilizers to do this project right from the beginning and I spent 7 months fully dedicated to the project as a creative and product design director, leading a small team of designers, defining the overall art direction and designing the master visuals and main things on my own. I was responsible for all the creative decisions regarding the project and I was in direct contact with the client and vendors daily.

I was also involved in many decisions on the functionality and features of the product, coming with a lot of ideas for new features. I created the complete user experience, art-directed the visuals, and designed each screen of the project.