Product design case study · ShellTerra / TotemPole Inc
ShellTerra brings people, places, plans, memories, activities and community information into one shared space. I worked on making a product with both private and public behavior feel simple, trustworthy and human.
Context & opportunity
THE PROBLEM
ShellTerra combines private groups, maps, messaging, activities, historical notes, media and public content. Without a strong organizing model, the product could easily feel like a collection of unrelated features.
THE OPPORTUNITY
The shell became the central product object: a shared space where people, places, activities and memories could stay connected while visibility remained intentional.
A trip, neighborhood, event, food drive or shared memory can contain many connected pieces of information.
A private family plan should not feel like a public announcement. Visibility needs to be understandable at the moment it matters.
People may remember, coordinate, discover, contribute or manage a community. Navigation cannot become a feature catalogue.
Research & problem validation
PROBLEM VALIDATION
Rather than treating ShellTerra as another social feed or another map, the experience was framed around four connected objects: shells, places, activities and access.
Private coordination, shared context, memory, selective public sharing and community information without forcing every use case into the same interaction.
Build a recognizable hierarchy first. Features should belong to a clear object instead of competing for attention at the same level.
REAL-WORLD USE CASE
The public food distribution experience shows how the same product foundation can move from private community coordination into practical location-based information.
The shell model can support useful public information when there is a clear reason to open selected content to a wider audience.
Keep private coordination and public discovery connected by the same underlying model, but do not make them feel like the same mode.
Many capabilities need one understandable organizing principle.
Places give experiences a physical anchor.
Visibility must be intentional rather than incidental.
Private experiences can create useful public value when selectively shared.
Solution exploration & design concepts
CONCEPT · CORE MODEL
The shell became the container that explains where people, places, activities and memories belong.
CONCEPT · PLACE + ACTIVITY
Places provide the physical anchor while activities create participation. This keeps planning and discovery grounded in a shared context rather than separating them into unrelated tools.
CONCEPT · ACCESS
Membership and magic words provide a visible access model so users can understand that a shell can remain controlled even when the wider product supports public experiences.
Core design decisions
THE SHELL AS ANCHOR
The shell should remain the strongest organizing object in the experience. Users should know which group or context they are inside before secondary actions compete for attention.
Why: A complex product needs one stable mental model that can absorb new capabilities without reinventing navigation.
PRIVATE → PUBLIC
Private coordination and public discovery are connected by the same model, but they should feel like different modes.
Why: Users need to understand what becomes visible and retain control over access rather than discovering privacy rules after the fact.
Design philosophy: Create a strong mental model first, then let the feature set grow inside it.
Iteration cycles & shipping
ITERATION FOCUS
Multiple capabilities could make the product feel like a feature catalogue.
Users could lose the connection between people, place, activity and memory.
Keep the shell as the stable container while layering places, activities, timemarks and access inside the same model.
The live product brings private shells, messaging, activities, members, maps, timemarks and selective public sharing together.
Outcome: The product model can support both immediate coordination and longer-term community memory without requiring a different mental model for every feature.
PLACE
Maps and place context give activities and memories a physical anchor.
MEMORY
Activities support participation while timemarks preserve what happened over time.
ACCESS
Private spaces can become useful to wider communities when selected information is intentionally opened.
Interface design
A focused set of real ShellTerra visuals, selected because each one supports a specific part of the product story.
What worked: design validation
Multiple capabilities can sit inside a recognizable object instead of competing as separate top-level features.
Maps and location context connect activities and memories to something people can physically recognize and revisit.
Membership and access concepts make visibility part of the product model rather than an afterthought.
The public food distribution experience demonstrates that the same underlying model can support useful community information.
Friends, families, teams, organizations and communities can use the same shell-based foundation at different scales.
What I learned
When a product has many capabilities, users need a strong object that explains where those capabilities belong. Shells provide that organizing principle.
Trust is created by making access and visibility understandable at the moment they matter, not only through a privacy page.
The most useful public information can come from experiences that began as small private interactions. The product should support that transition without forcing it.
THE TAKEAWAY
ShellTerra shows how a product can begin with a private group and gradually create value at a community level. The core design work is making that journey feel clear, intentional and trustworthy.