FotoNest

Tested as host on my computer, then as guest on my phone.

Main question: did the selfie search find all your photos?
Yes, all of them and no wrong ones. The core works really well.

Biggest point: it feels like a system, not a human experience
This shows up in two places:
Look: the dark, techy styling feels like a developer tool, very impersonal. For a consumer app around events you want trust and fun: show real people smiling, real events, real example albums (stock images or your own are fine). Do this on the landing page and in the app. Default to auto/light mode, since wedding hosts expect light.
Language: the wording describes the logic instead of what people experience. "Contribute Photo" → "Add photo". "Launch in demo mode" means nothing to a host. The hero line ("Your face, their photos found...") sounds nice but doesn't say what happens. Write every label and line the way a guest would say it out loud.
Make it feel social, not like a machine.

Did you trust it with your selfie?
Yes, but add a short line saying the selfie isn't saved and is only used to scan.

Are the 3 privacy options clear?
Public is clear, Private less so, and Selfie only explains the how but not the what. Same language point: lead with what it does for me, then how:

• Public: anyone with the link can see and add photos
• Private: anyone can see, adding needs a PIN
• Selfie only: guests only see photos they're in (via selfie match)

Selfie only is your strongest selling point, so say it this concretely on the landing page too.

Where did I get stuck?
Demo mode and pricing was the most confusing part. I didn't know what "demo mode" meant, and I saw 4 plans plus unexplained Monthly/Yearly before choosing anything. I could even pick Public and still pay, so it's unclear what each plan actually gets me. Suggestion: drop the toggle and make it a Free plan, put privacy at the top, show a pricing overlay only when someone picks a paid option, and use fewer plans (Enterprise can simply be "unlimited").
Also:

• My draft was lost when I navigated away. Save it in the browser
• Steps are out of order (e.g. the watermark switch sits above the logo/handle it needs). Follow the user's chronological flow
• Uploading: add "Add another" with a thumbnail. "Back" uploads immediately and should ask "Discard these photos?"
• Header: Photos/People/Public/Share all look alike, but only Share is clickable. Make Share a big, distinct button ("1 people" → "1 person")
• As host, "Scan QR" is highlighted over "Create Event". Make them equal
• The "+" for adding another event is easy to miss. Make it more obvious so hosts create more events
• Let me change privacy after the event is created

Guest flow

• QR scan is smooth, and copy link + QR + native share is great
• Find My Photos, Browse Public Photos and 5 searches a day are smart choices. Keep them
• Face search in the browser is great, and it works so well that the mobile app matters less than you might think. Auto-capture would be nice, and the "Looking for you" screen could use a processing animation
• Bug: after signing out, rescanning the QR logged me straight back in
• Bug: the watermark was on but didn't show on downloads, via either "Save image" or "Download via website". You can find my two accounts by my name
• Forced sign-in is a barrier. Do the selfie before sign-up and show "You're in 12 photos". That will convert really well
• Adding photos as a guest feels hidden. Make it more visible
• Show the Instagram follow prompt later

Would I use it instead of WhatsApp or Drive?
Probably yes, it's easier. The hurdle is creating an account on a new, unfamiliar platform. Counter that with the no-signup preview, a more social feel, social proof, and ready-to-post materials people can share.

Overall: the core works great. Make it feel human, fix the pricing flow and the sign-up barrier, and I'd actually use this.

P.s. in the landing page, I would not use the words "open app". If I don't have the app it feels off.

Also: when I scan a QR, it should be added to my events in the home section. So that I don't have to scan it each time I want to see it. It didn't show in the "events I joined" either.

Second go at this one, and this time I actually tried the face search instead of just poking around the host side — well, as far as I could get.

I went back into my demo event, "Test Koi Launch Offsite", which I'd left empty since the first test. I uploaded a portrait, a generated test photo, 360 KB, through Contribute photo, and it landed in the gallery with no fuss, 1 of 1 done. The event page went from 0 photos to 1 photo and the People count ticked up to 1, so the app did spot a face in it. That part worked fine.

Then I hit Find my photos and that's where it stalled. The screen is just "Take a selfie" with a Start camera button, nothing about uploading a photo instead. I clicked Start camera and it came straight back with "Requested device not found" — this desktop browser has no camera, so there was nowhere else to go. I tried attaching the same portrait file to that button and it flat-out refused, it's not a file upload at all. So I never got an answer to the main question, did the search find my photo, because I couldn't give it a selfie in the first place. On a laptop without a camera that's a dead end, and the page doesn't warn you anywhere. It still shows 5 of 5 searches left, untouched.

A couple of other things from this round. The Find my photos page still flashes that red "Couldn't load your search history" line even though I've never run a search — it reads like something broke when nothing did. And my event is stuck on Public; the settings page says privacy is locked after the event started, so I couldn't flip it to Selfie only on this one. I did open the create-event form to check: all three privacy options are there and Selfie only is selectable in the form, but the demo switch was greyed out — "You already have an active demo event, end it before starting another" — and a new event priced out at $10 for 2 months on Standard, so I wasn't going to kill my test event or pay to find out. Home still says 1 of 206 photos even though the demo was sold as a 200-photo cap, that mismatch is still there too.

For what it's worth the signup side was easy, email and password, santaroisme@gmail.com, no verification email, straight in. The upload side is smooth. But the thing the listing actually sells — one selfie, all your photos — I couldn't run on this setup, and I'd rather say that plainly than pretend I did. On a phone with a camera it might be great; from here I just don't know.