Shotchain UX Design Case Study

B2B

SaaS

UX Case study

Shotchain: A better way to share ideas with the team

Shotchain is an asynchronous and video-first system for idea-sharing and collective knowledge hub for teams.

Introduction

Overview

Shotchain is a B2B and SaaS web app that makes it easy to share and access ideas. Through an asynchronous and video-first approach, it helps team members participate in ideation meetings and share ideas without being physically present.

Anyone can get to know what others say and share their ideas by posting their self-recorded thoughts when they are comfortable sharing and listening.

Project Goal

Design an alternative online team meeting system where everyone can participate and share their ideas, even after the meeting. In their comfortable time and place, users can see what everybody says and share their ideas with everyone as well.

The Problem

The video meetings, like Zoom meetings, are synchronous. Because of its nature of invitation-first and synchronous presence, few teammates always miss that because of various reasons.

There is no way to communicate the ideas of members who missed it, and it's impossible to participate in discussions that are gone.

The Solution

Research and design a video-first communication and idea sharing system which makes it easy to share and reach ideas where everyone can learn and participate.

It works as a dynamic collective knowledge hub where opinions and ideas of everybody are stored and can be accessed by anyone and any time- all at their comfort.

My responsibilities

I was responsible for conducting research, designing high-fidelity designs, making component libraries, and creating user flows.

However, I was NOT responsible for designing the preliminary wireframes. Those are delivered to me from other team member.

Hollistic Approach

The Process

We defined the necessary phases of the design process to get an understanding of a product and set an MVP definition. And, finally, came up with solutions that will help understand product-market fit and start getting real customer feedback.

Discovery

Research

Foundational research

I conducted foundational research on 7-9 people from a different set of backgrounds including employees who work on-site and also who works remotely. We asked them a few questions about how communication usually takes place among the teams. We wanted to get insights into a few questions we kept in mind.
‍

How often do participants miss online meetings like Zoom meetings?
How do they get to know about the conversations that took place in that missed Zoom meeting?
How do the participants communicate their ideas to the team?
Do the participants think that it's a problem that needs a more effective way to team communication?

The majority of the participants told that they have to conduct and participate in Zoom meetings or online video conference meetings because it's easy to arrange and effective. However, they also expressed frustration when they miss that. Like all meetings, once it's over, there is no way to participate in it.

Online meetings are indeed easy to arrange, but it is also true some team members always miss that because of various reasons. Although it's easy to arrange, but not that easy to arrange every day. The meetings happen once or twice a week, but idea happens at any time.

We need a system in place to communicate ideas effectively, with all, anytime.

The problem with Zoom meeting

As the Covid-19 virus sweeps across the planet, businesses are pivoting to virtual meetings at the cost of productivity. Video-calling gives the illusion of collaboration, but Wundamail research on 20,000 employees reveals overindulging in pointless chit-chat is costing businesses more than £1000 per employee each month in wasted time.

56%

Virtual meetings reduce productivity

56% respondents wished they spent less time on video-calls altogether, suggesting many teams are excessively using video apps, not achieving their work tasks and calling for virtual meetings to be reduced.

42%

Uninterrupted employees gain more productivity

42% of remote workers surveyed felt they were “more productive” after working for a long period of uninterrupted time, as having a continuous stream of virtual distractions on various apps was reported to be deeply distracting.

73%

Thinks video conferences give illusion of "work-done"

73% of respondents regarded video-conferencing as getting “work-done”, which suggests that video calls, for some, give a dangerous illusion of productivity - when in reality, very little work is completed or produced.

27%

Thinks virtual meetings are the biggest communication barrier

People were three times more likely to deliver on actions agreed in writing than video, as they failed to remember key information after hanging up on a video-call and due to lack of follow-up.

Pain Points

Following are the core problems this product aims to solve, largely aligned with those about teammates.

01

Participants can't participate in a video meeting if they miss it- Often time a video meeting ends without everyone's participation.

02

There is no effective way to share ideas with all quickly - It needs to arrange another meeting and it's hard to do frequently.

03

There is no place where everyone's opinions, instructions, and ideas could be found. - Because some ideas and instructions are worth re-hearing.

04

Interruption in flow state- Employees in nd technical roles like design, writing, and software development work well in When they're pulled into too many virtual meetings, their productivity and output start to drop.

Executive Summary

Shotchain is a collective knowledge hub for the team and it will enable users to share their ideas by recording short videos and see ideas posted by others- all at their own comfort. This product will affect users by allowing them to skip frequent virtual meetings.

Feature Narrative

The features of Shotchain re-enforces the sharing of ideas and inclusive participate in a team's collaborative knowledge space. It is where the wisdom and knowledge of the team lies and is accessible to all who need it.

A collaborative knowledge hub:
It allows team members to record their ideas or instruction on specific topics and upload it in the playlist of videos (shots) that is created for that topic.

Properly structured for better communication:
We planned Slack-like structure which is composed of channels and sub-channels. Every channel contains clusters of videos (shots) that are relevant to it. Product design team channels like- HR, Design, Development.

Manager will manage for better organization:
For every channel and sub-channel, there will be one "owner". The "owner" will record the video(shot), dedicate others to record video shots, assign others co-managers, and invite or remove members from Shotchain.

"Communication overflow"-proof:
Message for all is the message for none. In a big team, there are different disciplines, like- designers, HR, finance, developers, etc., and their domains of participation also differ. Every channel and sub-channel is invitation only so that the proper person has scope to participate. It also reduces communication overflow on others.

Product design

Planning UX

User flow

The user flow mapped the journey of a user from the entry point to the successful participation in the Shotchain. The flow covered the journey below:

- New user onboarding,
- Invited user onboarding,
- Creating team profile,
- Creating a Shotchain,
- Browsing and adding videos to the Shotchain and
- Inviting, assigning, and dedicating Shotchai to others.

Site Map

I choose a hierarchical model for the sitemap of Shotchain. I selected so because of the simplicity and ease of understanding. The sitemap contains the different content locations.

Application guide

Wireframes

Based on the initial ideation, a team member provided me with the initial wireframes. I rejected some design ideas and iterated others that met the design goal. These wireframes gave me a deep understanding about early product's look and feel.