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A virtual reality conference app that uses 3D avatar characters and environments to interact and communicate with others.
Role
Seja Kwon, UX Designer, Brian Lee, 3D Designer
Duration
January 2021 - June 2021
Tools
Figma, Miro, Cinema 4D
Project Overview
User Experience: I did all the User Experience roles including brainstorming, creating project timeline, competitive analysis, research, interviews, testing, and informational architecture.
User Interface: I created all layouts, wireframes, and sketches as well as the branding. I also guided the style, direction, and execution of the 3D animations.
Problem Background
How might we make online calls feel less fatiguing to pay attention to?
Since the pandemic, remote school and work has become a norm in society. Video conferencing apps have become the solution to solve this issue of distance. However, online video calls also do come with their own challenges and problems. Many people often find it tiring and challenging to focus in online calls for long durations of time. Productivity and Engagement in school and work seems to be down for many people. Society is also still learning and adapting to this new experience. One thing that is evidently clear through experience and observation is that, looking at screens for online calls for long durations of time makes concentration difficult and lowers productivity.
Problem
Solution
Make a new online conferencing app called Peep, that gamifies the call experience by using space and a more sociable environments through 3D animation.
Create
yourself
through
Peepmoji
Create yourself through Peepmojis in the way you see yourself and communicate with others in a new way on online conferencing apps.
Virtual Room
Environments
Choose the 3D environment of your meetings, depending on the circumstance and amount of people in the meetings.
Emote
Reacts
Express yourself in a fun animated way through your Peepmoji character. See peoples emotions and reactions on there face and body gestures, not just through there voice.
Background Research
According to BBC, being on a video conference call requires more focus than a face-to-face chat. There are less non-verbal cues present in a video conference call which results in harder communication. Besides showing less verbal cues, having your face cam on can make you feel even more self conscious, causing you to feel unwanted stress, while not having cameras on during a call devoids all non verbal cues, making it more difficult to communicate for long durations without feeling fatigued.
Traditional tile screens feel lifeless and detached from the group discussion.
Interviewing people
To gain insight, a survey was created to gauge who the target users were and select the ones that matched the tendencies and behaviors of the specific target user. The biggest priority was currently enrolled students or workers who used online calling apps for at least once a week for an hour or more, in the age group of 32 or younger.
Quotes Insight
From a total of 28 people surveyed, 10 were deemed fit for a potential interview. The insight gained from the interviews were that each interviewee had there own opinion on whether they enjoyed working or learning from home. However, all agreed that doing work and school online was not great for there productivity and performance.
Empathy Mapping
After collecting all the information I gathered through the interviews, I organized all the insights into an empathy map to clearly understand the points of a user better. From there we organized them into two archetypes of my ideal target user. This not only helped me clearly understand who my ideal target users were, but helped to pinpoint the characteristics of the users.
Creating User Personas
The characteristics of the two ideal target users for me was one user that was a sociable and collaborative student who shows leadership skills. This user was someone I looked into for somebody that would create and organize online calls. The other ideal user was for a student who is more introverted and to themselves that needs something to feel more comfortable communicating with others and expressing themselves.
Key takeaways from research
Physical
Social
Space is important to conversation
We need the conversation to feel more social through clearer communication and social cues.
Entertainment
Traditional online calls are boring!
Moodboard
To understand the sequence and flow of my app, I created a userflow of my two most important red routes, the signup experience and the creating/joining meeting experience.
Userflows
To understand the sequence and flow of my app, I created a userflow of my two most important red routes, the signup experience and the creating/joining meeting experience.
Userflows
Creating / Joining Room
Sketching Red Routes
After creating an understandable and functional red routes it was time to move on to sketching out the userflows. I kept in mind the style and direction of the moodboard while sketching the layouts.
Branding
& Logo
The branding direction of the app would be Fun, Alluring, Easy, Friendly. The concept of the name Peep comes from it’s dual definition, to peer through or as if through a crevice and also to utter a feeble shrill sound as of a bird newly hatched. The name gives off a sense of youth and visual symbolism for the logo, as the holes in the letter P’s in the logo are symbolic of peepholes the characters are inside in the app..
Colors
The colors of Peep symbolize youth, positivity, and cheerfulness. Although the target age for my app was intended for young adult students and youthfully spirited companies, I wanted the colors and the overall branding and layouts to bring out a childlike spirit in the experience of the app.
Final Product
After much hardwork in my research and design, I finally created my final screens. Through the red routes that I created with my userflows, sketches, and research, I was able to finally reach my end product. The two red routes that I designed for in my app was the sign up/creating avatar experience and the hosting/joining meeting experience.
Link to my final Figma file here
Outcomes
Overall for this project, I am satisfied with the progress that I made as a UX designer. This was my first in depth research heavy UX project that I completed. With a background as a former graphic design student, I found the difficulty in taking my time to do the research before delving into the designs very hard. Huge thanks to my friend Brian Lee for collaborating with me on this project and creating the 3D Animation. He really helped bring my idea to life and the results of the project were a testament to our teamwork.
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