JAMES: Welcome to Happy Paths, where we unpack the human stories behind some of the most used, the most influential, and most famous software from the internet era.


I'm James Evans. I'm the CEO of CommandBar and the host of Happy Paths.


Augmented reality, often abbreviated AR, combines computer-generated virtual elements with the real world. Unlike virtual reality, AR enhances a person's perception of the real world instead of replacing it entirely. Snap, the company behind Snapchat, recognized the potential of AR early on. 


In 2015, they released Lenses, which have been one of the most popular features in the product ever since. In their S-1 document from 2017, they described themselves as a camera company, not a social company or a software company. And their continued investment in AR experiences make Snapchat probably the most used AR-centric product ever.


Today, I'm talking with Stephanie Engle, a Product Design Lead at Snap who focuses on many of their AR products, including Shopping Lenses, which shipped at the end of 2022.


AR can mean different things depending on who you ask. And every big tech company seems to have a different take, from Meta's iterations of Oculus to the Apple Vision Pro, which was actually announced just a few days after I talked with Stephanie. But the general theme is an experience layered on top of someone's real world. 


STEPHANIE: So it's like if I see anything in the world and I apply a creative vision towards it, it's helping you kind of realize that vision in your head onto the world. It's also things like pointing your camera at things, or maybe in the future your glasses, or whatever it is and being able to, you know, intuit new information from that object. 


So, on a technology sense, what does that mean? It's things like, you know, basic AR technology. You can think of, like, [laughs] vomiting rainbows, and dancing hot dogs, and all the things that Snapchat is famous for, like, little creations and characters on the world. But we also think of things like perception technology, so being able to kind of scan something in the world. And, again, like, glean information from that object and maybe glean what that object is. 


And then I think a lot of the new recent AI-type technologies. We also think of that as part of the spectrum of augmented reality because it's kind of a layer onto it. So it's something that can be projected onto the world and manipulate or augment the things around you. 


JAMES: Stephanie joined Snap in July 2020. As well as design experiences at Facebook, Cruise, and Airbnb, she also brought a background in photography, which turned out to be quite relevant. 


STEPHANIE: I was definitely the kid in high school who played with Photoshop. And I was really into photography and kind of manipulating scenes and, you know, thinking through, like, video editing, and how to do After Effects-type reels, and things like that. And so I was very aware of taking footage of the world and manipulating it and doing things on top of it. So that was something that was, like, very intuitive for me. That creativity came super naturally to me. I would have never thought of it as, like, augmented reality in the slightest.


You know, Snap was really, really big at my high school, actually, or starting to get big at my high school at the very end. And then it got huge in college. So when I was in college...I went to Duke University. And everybody used Snapchat. And it was mostly obviously just a communication device in the beginning and sending, you know, pictures back and forth and all that kind of stuff. And then there were, like, 2D filters, which we don't really think of so much as augmented reality, but kind of it's on the spectrum of creative tools you can use. 


And then I think when the filters came out on Snapchat, that was probably my first thought of, like, huh, this is very different. It's, like, all the things that I've done on my computer but kind of layered onto people's faces. 


JAMES: Over the last few years, we've seen a bunch of more mainstream AR experiences. There is Snapchat Lenses, of course, including the iconic Dog Lens. There's the Zoom feature that can smooth your skin or change your background image. There's Pokémon GO superimposing Pikachu into your backyard. These experiences are all magical, but they're not all-consuming and don't require specialized hardware like VR. So they kind of fit into the rhythm of our lives. 


STEPHANIE: I don't think internally anyone was ever like, oh, this is augmented reality, like, maybe some of the deep engineers. But I think the design team at the time was really focused on just the play, the fun. Like, what were people actually going to do with this novelty, fun thing? And so I think that's something Snapchat's always done well.


And I know at one of Evan's...Evan Spiegel, the CEO's common refrains is, like, all serious ideas start as toys. And so that's kind of one of his things. But then after I actually, [laughs] like, got introduced to it, I kind of only worked on technology that was deeply related to AR.


JAMES: As of this recording, Stephanie's Twitter bio is quote, "Designing toys at Snap." I really like the framing of an experience as a toy. For one thing, it ensures that the builders don't take themselves or their ideas too seriously. It's okay to ship something just because it seems cool or fun. This concept makes a lot of sense for a social consumer product, where it drives the core growth loop to give users reasons to keep coming back to the app to check out what the latest toy drop was. 


In B2B software, the idea of play is a lot more controversial. Some people think software should just do a job and let users get in and get out of the product. Other people take the perspective that most humans prefer fun digital spaces, even when they're in work mode. At CommandBar, we tend to fall in the latter camp. But we can't get too silly or opinionated since our software goes into other companies' software products. Maybe we'll do a whole episode on this one day. Anyway, back to the land where toys are unequivocally good. 


STEPHANIE: Most things that we work on are actually truly just, like, let's dip our toe. Let's almost, like, hide or bury the feature and see if some big fans discover the feature and really enjoy it. Now, obviously, there's, like, entire organizations dedicated to Lenses now, and it's all very serious. 


And I think kind of the funny part is trying to figure out at a company, at the stage we're at is, you know, how do you approach a technology very seriously and with tons of serious people who work on product and engineering and all these things but keep the design super light-hearted for the audience that, like, it's still a lot of the same folks we were serving back then? It's like, how do we be fun? And so I think that's actually a lot of our...some of the challenge, like, within the organization. I think my team is pretty good at that, at, like, fun and work. [laughs] But I think a lot of other folks struggle with that. 


Something that we really were starting to think about when I joined the company was AR has had this one really successful dimension, maybe two, basically, which is, like, fun, like, self-expression, and then also entertainment. So, at the time, that's when, you know, effects for TikTok and dancing and things like that were kind of really starting to take off. Like, self-expression and entertainment were kind of the big ones. 


And, when I came in, I was sort of, like, you know, I wonder when the shift happens from the fun, playful augmented reality to these other serious use cases. And, like, what is the company doing around those? And so there were things we were doing at the time, like investing a lot in perception technology to be able to detect things in the world and read different things in the world. And everyone can kind of imagine why that type of technology is really, really relevant to, like, a glasses-based world, for example. But we were really just thinking, like, what are the use cases? Like, what would people be really excited to use in augmented reality? 


JAMES: And now what started off as a fun toy is actually driving revenue directly for Snap via shopping.


STEPHANIE: There was a lot of parts of that experience that weren't being well-captured online. So, for example, a lot of folks were able to shop for tons of items. But what they end up doing is ordering tons of items and returning a bunch of them, which causes a lot of cost problems for the brand but also environmental issues. And it kind of leads to this negative cycle of brands producing clothes faster and faster to try and keep up with trends. And with people ordering clothes so much. 


And people also, you know, expect a certain level of speed of self-expression because of tools like AR and creative tools. And so they're expecting, like, you know, their clothes to move that quickly too and their clothes to pick up on trends, not just, like, fun effects and things they use. And so we saw, like, a lot of this, like, very interesting—I don't want to use the word synergy, so I'm not—[laughs] but a lot of these, like, interesting connections between what our users did, which is, like, they liked shopping. They liked ordering clothes because they enjoyed self-expression on platforms like Snapchat, and those things were very interlinked. 


And we also saw an opportunity for AR to fill in some of the gaps that online shopping wasn't serving for people. So, when you go to a store, you're able to try clothes on, for example. And AR is actually a really great technology to use to try on clothing. 


JAMES: So, obviously, a common criticism of online shopping is that you can't try before you buy like you can in a brick-and-mortar store. But now Snap Shopping Lenses solved for this, same is starting to become true of furniture shopping. The IKEA app, for example, lets you visualize what a piece of furniture is going to look like in your physical space. This is very cool, but I'm pretty sure they stole this idea from Clueless. 


[Playing Clip From the Film Clueless]


♪ [Playing Fashion by David Bowie] ♪


CHER: I mean, I get up. I brush my teeth, and I pick out my school clothes.


♪ They do it over there, but we don't do it here. ♪


JAMES: Maybe we'll need to do a future episode with Cher Horowitz, the real pioneer of augmented reality shopping.


After the break, Stephanie talks about how Snap comes up with ideas for new AR experiences.


One tidbit I didn't appreciate before this conversation was just how much Snap thinks about explicitly growing the developer ecosystem around Lenses as a primary objective. I always assume that developers would just follow end users. But Stephanie and Snap design with their developers as a first-class citizen in mind.


STEPHANIE: We started looking into, like, could we build this technology or purchase some companies that would help us create a bit of this, like, shopping suite? Like, a set of things that we could use to help Snapchatters try on clothes and purchase them, or just try on different looks on their bodies just for fun, and just to post those and enjoy those as well. 


And so, basically, we worked on a ton of AR technology. And actually, like, this past year, we had our Developer Summit. And that was, you know, one of the really big headliners was talking about our Shopping Suite and how much that's grown. And so, in the wild, you can actually go to a merchant's website and, you know, shop their website and try on some of the clothes in AR because of the technology we provide them. And then also on our own platform, you're able to kind of scroll through Lenses, and you can find, like, fun outfits and things like that to try on as well. 


So that was, like, kind of one huge focus of my early time at Snap was how do we start to really think about, you know, a serious use case for AR in a serious business, which is shopping and commerce? However, kind of the way we started it was, like, oh, what if you could, you know, we're a great app to take full-body selfies. And then how could we make that full-body selfie more awesome? And it's things like applying clothes. 


I think that even with every reminder, sometimes you find yourself, like, saying something so technical. And you're like, oh my gosh, I remember what it was like to be a 15-year-old girl, like, unsure of how I look in clothes. Like, I remember that. And that's, like, the person we're trying to help is that person to experiment with their style and learn more about how they look and the things they want to express to other people. 


You know, a lot of folks hear the things I work on in the past and now with AR and all the related technologies, and they think it's, you know, you need to get very technical to work on these things. And I actually think the really difficult part is actually staying more human and thinking back to, like, real reasons people care about this stuff instead of shoving technology at them. 


JAMES: When I visualize Snap, I think of a big toy factory with lots of little rooms where people are playing with crazy experimental features. I'm sure that's not that far off from reality. But I think something that's under-discussed is how consumer products source ideas. It's easy to believe that founder geniuses are so in touch with their users that they can rattle off feature ideas from an ivory tower, and often, that's somewhat true. Evan Spiegel does seem uniquely gifted at this. But, as Steph says, it's also critical to have a research process for drawing inspiration from the real users of your product and their experiences, emotions, and desires. 


STEPHANIE: You know, I draw a lot of inspiration from the research and from what people are actually doing in the world and just from talking to younger folks, although our experience is increasingly, like, aging up with different people, especially in different regions around the world. And so I think it's important to listen to the research, especially for a lot of those elements. 


I get a lot of inspiration from my team. So I think we've done a good job building a team where some of the people I work with are our users. [laughs] And they live in, like, you know, one younger member of my team lives in India, and that's actually one of our biggest countries. And so he's able to tell us, like, things happening at his school. And so I think I draw inspiration from that. 


But I also think, like, to what I was just saying, I draw a lot of inspiration from, like, the things I felt when I was younger on Snapchat or real experiences I've had in the world as a younger adult and how things are changing. So I think a lot of that is super relevant still even, like, just a lot of those feelings and trying to protect that person and think, could this feature be used in a really malicious way, or how could it be exclusionary? Or how could it be awesome and fun? And what kinds of things would I have needed at that time? So I do think that's a huge benefit is being able to kind of reach into that.


But then there's trends and things we can't even anticipate, the way people use the app around the world. There's a lot of things that I'm discovering and learning all the time from things like research. 


JAMES: So, like, how do you think about success metrics, generally, for the team? Does it vary substantially from project to project? 


STEPHANIE: Yes. In terms of success, I mean, a lot of the core metrics still apply. Like, I think Snapchat has a little bit of this, like, I don't know, subversive almost look compared to some of these other bigger companies. But we do care about people engaging on the platform and the healthy metrics around retention, and DAU, and all that kind of thing. So, you know, we don't completely ignore those at all. And I think they're really important. 


I think there are some use cases where very nuanced things come to matter. So, for example, one of the things I also work on in addition to this side of people using augmented reality it's also the developer side and the tools that folks use to actually create really fun, amazing Lens experience. And we call them our, like, Lens Creators or Lens Developers. 


And so sometimes a lot of our goals hinge around things that make them successful or them really happy. And so, you know, for example, we might launch a feature that looks consumer-facing, but actually, the way we're looking at it is more like, oh, does it bring more of these developers onto using our platform because they're excited about a new technology you can use inside of Lenses? 


Or maybe it's increasing their business in a way, or, you know, those are still core and, like, typical metrics because we're hoping to retain them. We're hoping to attract new developers. But yeah, sometimes the things I work on are aimed at that audience, even if they kind of mask as a consumer-facing product. There's some element of, like, qualitative and just listening to people and seeing, like, how are they actually using the products? What are they actually getting from them? 


And there's other times when metrics seem awesome, like, wow, people are really using this. And then you dig into what's going on, and you're like, oh, no, they feel forced to use it, or it's actually not really contributing positively. So, you know, being intentionally a little vague there. But there's been a few times when just talking to people and the qualitative assessment has really, really mattered.


JAMES: Coming up, Stephanie talks about one of Snap's most iconic and somewhat infamous launches.


In 2016, Snap unveiled their first hardware product: Spectacles. Unlike other hardware products, you couldn't just buy Spectacles in a store. You had to get them from a yellow, minions-esque vending machine called Snapbot. The whole release kind of felt like performance art.


[Playing Clip]


MAN: And you can just upload it to your Snapchat. 


WOMAN: Since then, they've only been selling them at Snapbot vending machines across America. 


MAN: The big thing is that the Snapbot dispenses until it's out for that day, and then it goes to sleep, right?


WOMAN: Yeah.


MAN: And so it has a very limited supply. You have to know where--


JAMES: The artificial scarcity of the Spectacles launch made them really sought after. And although that first iteration of Spectacles wasn't actually AR focused—They just allowed you to take pictures and videos from your vantage point instead of layering content onto your visual field—they do embody the spirit of fun and play that Steph, and I kept returning to. 


STEPHANIE: You know, there's been certain features and products like Spectacles where maybe there was a lot of marketing, and fanfare, and excitement around launching them, and then they won't actually prove why they've been valuable till a while later. I think that's another thing just to consider is that there's some products like that, like, just make a splashy launch or people read into it a lot. And there's a lot of media and press surrounding it that makes it feel like, you know, we made it bigger than it was. I think that one is different. 


But the other thing I would say is I do think a lot of consumer is keeping up with how people are changing and especially when you're working with a younger audience in a lot of cases. But, again, our audience is, like, matured in a lot of ways, but we still very much serve a younger audience. And they're exploring, and they're trying new things. And they have new trends and new language, and new things all the time. And so we're not in the service of, like, becoming a trend-following company and just trying to keep up that way. We try and be very first principles. 


However, there are certain things that are just going to be, like, short-term hits, and we kind of know it. And so one thing I would point to is when we create Lenses as a company, we often create a Lens that goes super viral for a short period of time, and that's kind of the point. It's like a movie, like, you can't keep watching it over and over and over. 


We launched this, like Cartoon Lens, that makes you look like a cartoon. And a lot of people, like, redownloaded Snapchat just to start using this again and using it on their pets. And they kind of called it, like, the Disney Princess Lens. And that came from our, like, hit engine. Like, that came from the team that experiments with new technology to do things like that. 


And they weren't expecting to build, like, an enduring product that lasts forever. They were trying to learn something, and it happened to be this, like, short-term, like, hit, and then people use it. And then they're, like, cool, and then they move on to the next thing. But we can still take the learnings from that and say, like, huh, like, what else could we potentially do with this technology? 


JAMES: One interesting thing Snap did with this technology was extend Lenses past mobile devices onto webcams. In 2018, they created an app called Snap Camera, which gives you access to Snap's extensive library of filters, and lets you use them on Twitch, or Google Meet, or any video app on your desktop or laptop. 


Snap actually discontinued Snap Camera last year. I didn't get a chance to ask why. But that release and the first iteration of Spectacles speaks to this experimental culture that seems to exist at Snap, where a launch can be valuable as an experiment, even if what was launched actually doesn't have longevity. I think every startup can learn from this perspective. I actually wrote a little blog post about this called "The Art of Unshipping" that we'll link to in the show notes. 


On that note, I was curious how Steph thought about usage as a proxy for the success of the feature she works on.  


How much do you think about getting as many people in the user base as possible kind of, like, exposed to shopping? 


STEPHANIE: It's more of an ecosystem challenge. So a lot of our products for users are, like, are we serving the person using the product? Versus shopping is, you know, it's a multi-stakeholder thing. It's the consumer. It's the brand. It's us and our business and how that relates to it. And then it also could be third-party developers who are helping some of these brands create experiences. 


So that one's more of an interesting challenge because it really is about balancing all of those things, so we could make a, you know, a die-hard amazing, little consumer experience. But if it's hard to integrate, for example, or it's inaccurate in some way, like, not showing the clothes accurately, or whatever it is, like, that would be not the best experience, right? [chuckles] 


And so we've had to really balance things like, hey, you know, if we're giving people, you know, Lenses with clothes in them, they really have to, like, represent the clothes extremely well, for example. Even though, like, maybe it would be hilarious if the clothes glitched out and did something crazy, right? [chuckles] Like, people make that funny all the time. But when you're serving a brand, for example, you can't just, like, [chuckles] screw with their stuff. 


I think shopping is a particularly interesting one because all of that matters. And ultimately, shopping has to become a business at some point. And, obviously, the technology is kind of evergreen and really helpful. I think Snapchat just works on so many different dimensions where there isn't just, like, one thing we're trying to serve. Like, some products are at the life stage where a die-hard audience is what we're looking at. It's hard to generalize across the company. And there's definitely folks on my team who focus on, like, different stratospheres of this. 


I think I have an interesting role where I really have to think about a lot of these multi-stakeholder problems because a Lens is not just a consumer toy anymore. It really is, like, a business for some brands and add product for other Snapchatters. Maybe it's a utility that they use. So it's become so much more. 


JAMES: It's hard to say where AR falls on the Gartner Hype Cycle. It feels like we've gone through at least one peak of inflated expectations. Back in 2014, Magic Leap raised hundreds of millions over multiple venture rounds but failed to deliver much. But AR is certainly having another moment, with Apple just announcing its $3,500 AR headset that should bring AR further into everyday life for many people. 


I think Apple wading into the space suggests we may be reaching the so-called slope of enlightenment, where the value of AR starts to catch up with its potential. But with features like Shopping Lenses, Snap's AR is probably already there. 


As we brought our conversation to a close, I asked Stephanie about her thoughts on the impact of Snap's work in bringing AR into the mainstream.


STEPHANIE: I think pretty much any consumer-facing [chuckles] product that uses AR has definitely taken some inspiration from Snapchat, whether it's, like, sometimes specifically the Lens-type things we offer. So sometimes there are, like, copycats of those. Sometimes it's, like, leveraging a technology or offering developers a technology they're able to use, like body tracking or something like that, you know, we were quite early too. 


You know, I think actually, like, with shopping, there were definitely some incumbents to things like beauty shopping. There were some big in a...relative to the size of the nascent AR shopping industry. But there were some, like, key players in that that, you know, we had been doing maybe face Lenses for a long time. And some of those face Lenses had makeup in them, but they were earlier to, like, really precision makeup for these brands. 


So there's a lot all over the place. There's some, like, very specific companies who've taken direct inspiration. And I think the company's, you know, stance on a lot of these things has always been that, like, it's a form of flattery for them to take those. 


And, you know, I think something specific I would point to is I really think Snap was early and first, actually, very, very first to developing an ecosystem around AR and treating it like a developer product. And so you see that with both Meta and TikTok have their own versions of what we call Lens Studio. And they develop those, and they have different products they offer developers. If you talk to any Lens developers, you'll definitely hear what Snap has done is, like, the leader in that category. And we do a good job, I think, on our developer tools, in particular. That's, like, one more, like, maybe mindset shift that we've kind of embraced that a lot of others haven't. 


And then I think there's still some things that we do that we see a lot of success from that others don't copy, or they can't really copy in a big way. And I think one of those examples is we open to the camera as a company. And that's been a very ideological core part of the business for a long time that kind of helps consumers and Snapchatters just, like, communicate super quickly. But it also opens up to, like, our Lenses are almost the equivalent of, like, you know, Facebook's newsfeed or something like that, right? [chuckles] Like, it's, like, the thing you open up to on the product. And so it's, like, the key real estate on the product.


Like, thinking from, like, a PM numbers, features perspective, like, that's kind of one way you can think about that product. But then from, like, a human perspective, it's like, you open to the mirror onto your face. And so our camera might be the fastest way to do a lot of communication and sending things to your friends whereas other companies can't just, like, do that. [chuckles] Like, that would destroy a lot of things they've created. 


I think some people might have this idea that, like, brands and developers have really specific things that they come to us, and they're like, build this, and you have to build that. And yes, often, that's the case. But I think directionally, like, when it comes to, like, what do we do in AR and why AR and those kinds of big questions, like, they really look to us. It's such a breath of fresh air working in a big consumer technology that's able to do that.


JAMES: Thank you for listening to Happy Paths. For more information about the show, visit us at commandbar.com/happypaths, or you could send us a Tweet @CommandBar. 


This podcast is executive produced by Maurice Cherry, with engineering and editing from Mandy Moore. 


Special thanks to Stephanie Engle and, of course, the entire team at CommandBar. 


I'm James Evans, and this is Happy Paths. See you next time.