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SpacePlan

Scenarion (subsidiary of Archiact)
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2018

Summary

Take the path of least resistance to design acceptance—every time. SpacePlan maximizes efficiency in gaming sessions, feasibility studies, and early-phase design. Meet the most intuitive and powerful 360° design tool ever built.

Goal

Architects want to be efficient and accurate during gaming sessions, feasibility studies and early-phase design so that they can get approvals faster and on budget.

My Involvement

Plan, create user flows, product branding, high-fi mockups, collaborate with developers about which solution is best to implement and support the launch process via Scenarion Labs.

Target Users

  • Junior, intermediate, Sr Architects

  • Innovation managers

Team

  • Myself as solo lead UX/UI

  • PM

  • Business stakeholders

  • Dev team (offshore)

Tools

  • VR – Oculus & Vive

  • Tablet

  • Desktop computer
     

Tools

  • Sketch

  • Illustrator

  • InVision

  • (built in Unity)

Image by Daniele Levis Pelusi

STAGE 1

Understand

Throughout this project, we were actively working with our partners at Stantec. Every week 1-3 members of their team would come into the Scenarion office to share feedback on the latest build. We would then observe them using the latest prototype and document any usability issues and next steps of what we would build over the next week.

Once we felt we had the core feature set ready, Rob (our PM on the team) performed some task-based user testing to identify opportunities for improvement.

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STAGE 2

Research

When I joined Scenarion, there was a prototype of the SpacePlan for VR already created. This prototype was shared with our partners at Stantec and was well received, but used minimally due to the fact that it didn’t have some basic features implemented yet (saving).

After launching our Rendezvue App, the team decided to revisit SpacePlan. This involved opening up the conversation with our most engaged partners at Stantec. We arranged a meeting at the Vancouver Stantec office and discussed their current process, identifying pain points, and we got more clarity around the fact that there are two different types of space planning sessions: gaming sessions and feasibility studies.

Gaming sessions are group collaboration meetings with project stakeholders, which involve cutting out pieces of paper scaled to various room sizes for the project, which are then discussed and placed on tracing paper to indicate the floors.

Feasibility studies are to provide a more thorough analysis of factors including constraints, site & space and budgets.

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STAGE 3

Analyze

Back at the office we decided to focus on better solutions for the gaming sessions. One key topic that stood out during our information session, was that conversation and collaboration are very important during these sessions — which made us realize that VR may not be the solution after all. We discussed what was required in order to digitize their current gaming sessions, then we listed out all the possible hardware solutions and the team decided that using a tablet, might be the best alternative. Tablets are easy to use, support multiple touches, and could eventually be synced between multiple tablets and projected onto a larger screen.

While I was on vacation, the team was hard at work creating the tablet prototype version of SpacePlan, validating the progress every week with our engaged partners at Stantec. After our three-week sprint was completed and validated, the conclusion was that the partners realized that precision was more important than they had originally thought, which lead us to spend our next three-week sprint making a desktop version of the app. This version would include an expanded feature set that would help them with feasibility study space planning.

Prototype

STAGE 4

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Now that the team narrowed in on the device, I began creating mockups for the desktop version. This involved adapting the same flow as used in the previous VR and Tablet prototypes but updating it to include more standardized design tool UI and features.

 

Sprint Week 1:

 

Basic features included:

  1. Program template download (Excel file)

  2. Import Program

  3. Add site context

  4. Drag and drop rooms from the Program List

  5. Editing dimensions of the rooms

  6. View options like, zoom, pan screen, 2D/3D toggle

Sprint Week 2:
 
Designing for multiple floors & 3D view – Concepts

One of the major draws to SpacePlan has been the fact that you can easily view the rooms in 3D. In order to solve the challenge of working with rooms with different ceiling heights, and making the tool as simple as possible, the idea of creating floors by elevation settings was the quickest to implement a solution that solved all the user needs.

Designers must be able to:

  • Move rooms between floors

  • Stack/elevate rooms

  • Visualize all rooms at an elevation range (ie. view all rooms on a floor)

  • Visualize what rooms are on the floor directly below

Sprint Week 3:
 

After sharing the prototype with three users, it was concluded that some of the micro-interactions and minor details were needed in order for the tool to be more enjoyable to use. We decided to spend the next three-week sprint to “tie the knot” as I say, on the product. I spent some time using the app to design a school and prioritized a list of must-have interactions and improvements to improve the UX, and make it ready to be released on Scenarion Labs. Improvements included an installer, welcome screen, program spreadsheet template instructions, along with a variety of interaction improvements within the app. We then ran some final user tests to make some final last improvements. 

Sprint Week 3:
 

After sharing the prototype with three users, it was concluded that some of the micro-interactions and minor details were needed in order for the tool to be more enjoyable to use. We decided to spend the next three-week sprint to “tie the knot” as I say, on the product. I spent some time using the app to design a school and prioritized a list of must-have interactions and improvements to improve the UX, and make it ready to be released on Scenarion Labs. Improvements included an installer, welcome screen, program spreadsheet template instructions, along with a variety of interaction improvements within the app. We then ran some final user tests to make some final last improvements. 

Demo Video

STAGE 5

Test

Unfortunately the company decided to close our business, due to shifting priorities, within a day of launching! We were unable to see the results of our work. 

Despite this, my team and I learned a lot about start-up culture, early validation, and how to work together productively. 

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