Avatar-driven productivity: Redefining virtual meetings
It’s June 2020, the height of the global Covid Pandemic, workforces are fractured in unimaginable ways, the ability to communicate & stay productive online is more important than ever before. Ovii Technologies senses the time is now to move forward with their unique vision for an innovative hybrid virtual meetings platform.
Role: Product & UI/UX designer
Duration: 3.5 years, June 20 - Feb 24
Apps: Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Jira, Trello
The problem
Scepticism & apathy towards virtual tech & its current value in professional use-cases. We aimed to lead the charge to change perceptions. With a small team & resources, how could we realise this ambitious vision?
The objective
To swiftly develop a lean MVP prototype of the VIORA platform, demonstrating our vision directly to investors & stakeholders, aiming to secure seed funding for scaling up development.
1: Research
We lacked an understanding of attitudes towards virtual meetings & what would convince people to use such a platform as part of their daily lives.
Now that video conferencing had gone mainstream, how could we convince users to take the next step into the virtual realm?
What were the key concerns & pain points for everyday users regarding this technology?
What did our core users look like & what did they want from a virtual meetings platform?
After synthesising my research, I was armed with a number of foundational key insights including the following:
Viora must be easy to join & set up, requiring no specialist knowledge. Meetings must be speedy & intuitive. No VR headset required.
Viora should fit a range of different use cases, offering membership options to accommodate them.
As a productivity tool intended to scale up to enterprise use, Viora had to be flexible, inclusive & attractive to users of different levels.
2: Conceptualize
Avatar creation tool
Viora would feature a speedy avatar creation tool with web-cam facial capture, photo upload & random avatars for time-constrained users.
Work groups & productivity features
Invite-only communication channels for groups to communicate, share media & securely launch meetings at any time, alongside persistent polls, task management & sticky notes.
Virtual & video meetings
Virtual meetings would need to be highly intuitive with security options to satisfy casual & business users, including the ability to switch to video conferencing.
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Sketches & scamps
When the core structure of Viora was established I began the process of conceptualizing features with rough sketches.
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Wire frames
After producing sketches I moved to creating basic wire frames to plan page layouts & the placement of elements.
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![UI wireframing]()
Refining layouts
I continued to iterate & refine layouts. In this example I updated this page to accommodate new categories for spaces.
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![UI design wireframing]()
MVP prototyping
With the wire frames complete, I moved to translate them into a working prototype using Figma, which would be used as the basis for the MVP.
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![UI design final design]()
Final UI design
After the basic prototype was in place, I was able to move to the final polished designs, further honing the UI & layouts
3: Final designs
Mood boards
I began by building mood boards, taking inspiration from other conferencing, productivity & VR applications, alongside a host of other resources. My key mandates for this research were: exciting, professional & approachable.
Colour palette
I adopted a light theme with a striking blue as the main brand colour, complimented by vibrant purple & pink accents. As an exciting new productivity platform, Viora required a professional, but welcoming contemporary character with a broad appeal.
Font choices
For Viora I chose a combination of Roboto for body copy & Gilroy bold for headings. I felt that this pairing of sans-serif fonts provided exactly the right ratio of character, readability & professionalism, appropriate for a productivity platform.
Design system
With key design decisions made, I created a full design system & library of components for the dev team, featuring interactive states for elements such as buttons, check boxes & radio buttons. I used an 8-pixel grid to determine spacing & scales.
4: Outcomes
By 2023, Viora was fully defined, with the design system finalised & the functional MVP completed. Securing over $2 million in seed funding, discussions for larger investments were also underway.
Viora had been white labelled for internal communications across three institutions & was undergoing trials by students at universities.
The finalised UI design style & colour palette yielded universal praise & enthusiasm from colleagues, stakeholders & users.
Reflections
As the sole designer, juggling multiple roles was both challenging & enlightening. Finding innovative ways to collaborate with developers in the interest of agility & efficiency was paramount. My goal was to garner support for Ovii's distinctive vision, securing the necessary investment for its realisation, which proved successful.
Achieving this milestone with limited resources & a small team was a great feat, presenting both immense challenges & phenomenal learning experiences.
