Users often shoot videos in the evening and night time when the lighting level is low. As a result, the quality of the final video suffers.
It is important to note that in our app, the majority of videos are recorded using the front camera.
Initially, to solve this problem, it was suggested to use the rear flash of the smartphone and ask the user to record video by turning the smartphone. This solution would have been the simplest and would have saved us development time. However, I considered this solution to be inconvenient for several reasons: the user would not be able to see themselves in the frame and there is a high risk of overwriting the already recorded video.
Instead, I proposed a solution with reducing the viewfinder area in the camera when the smartphone's front camera and flash are active. To verify that my solution works, I created an interactive prototype in ProtoPie with live camera connection and tested it in a dark room. My hypothesis was confirmed, the face was well lit and visible, while the person could see themselves.
Unfortunately, due to lack of time, the solution could not be tested on an audience, but after demonstrating the prototype, the design was accepted by the product owners and the solution went into development.