[ Say Helenaa ]

Overview

Say Helenaa is a webcam photobooth you control with your hands. Make a little finger gun, bend your index finger, and the camera takes a photo. Three shots later your prints slide out into a gallery you can play with. I designed it in Figma and built it myself, and it’s live on the web.

The problem

Photobooth apps are all the same: a big button, a countdown, done. I wanted something that felt like a toy. Something you’d show a friend just to watch their face when the camera reacts to their hand.

The hard part was making a gesture feel as reliable as a button. If the camera misses your finger twice, the magic is gone.

My role & team

Just me. Design, front end, and an unreasonable amount of time testing finger guns in front of my laptop.

Process

• Designed the screens in Figma first: the shoot screen, the how-to screen and the gallery
• Tried Figma Make for the interactive version, then switched to hand coding because it kept reinterpreting the design
• Built it as a plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript site, with hand tracking running right in the browser
• Tested on my own webcam until the shutter fired when I wanted it to, and not when I scratched my nose
• Added the gallery “play space” after the core flow worked

Key decisions

A 3 second countdown after the gesture

The first version took the photo the moment you bent your finger, which meant every photo was of you mid-gesture. Now the gesture starts a 3, 2, 1 countdown so you have time to pose. Obvious in hindsight. Most things are.

Show people what the camera sees

The how-to screen draws the hand tracking live on top of your camera, with a practice shutter. People learn the gesture in seconds when they can see the computer seeing them.

Keyboard and click still work

Space and clicking the lens both fire the shutter too. A toy should never lock someone out because their lighting is bad.

Screen by screen

Shoot

The camera sits in the middle with “Say helenaa” above it. Make the gesture, the countdown runs, the screen flashes white and you hear a little shutter sound.

The hand-off

After the third photo the camera flips around in 3D, shrinks, and glides to its spot in the gallery. It’s the same camera the whole time, so the story never breaks.

Gallery

Your three photos print out one by one with a warm retro filter. You can drag them around, tilt them, and decorate them with stickers in a cat bowl color palette. The cursor is a cat paw, because of course it is.

How to

“Helena, how do I?” opens a short guide with the live hand tracking overlay and a practice button, so you can try the gesture before it counts.