SpaceForm
UNStudio and Bjarke Ingels Group have partnered with Squint/Opera to develop SpaceForm, a virtual, cloud-based platform that facilitates design, review, and collaboration processes for architects and developers.
Collaboration: UNStudio x BIG x Squint/Opera
Role: Lead UI Design
App website: https://www.spaceform.io/
Press Readings: ArchDaily, Architect Magazine, Archinect News, Blooloop
2020 - 2021
Overview
A virtual workspace, a 3D multi-user platform, delivers presentations, reviews, and real-time data simulation on any device. Helping remote teams and clients make better-informed decisions.
The Problem we trying to solve.
99% of the building industry uses 2D tools (screens and paper) to design and review 3D projects.
= Misjudging spatial conditions and wasting time.
It’s time to work in 3D virtual reality, and we are creating the tool for it. SpaceForm - made by the industry for the industry
Platform considerations
Considering it’s a business presentation and meeting tool in virtual spaces, running it on a desktop and in VR guaranteed the majority of use-case scenarios.
” Over a third (77%) of participants join video meetings on their laptops or desktop computers. The second place is reserved for smartphones, with 31% of attendees choosing them as their primary means of communication. Preferred by only 13% of participants, tablets seem to be the least popular choice.”
—— Meeting Statistics: Effectiveness, Virtual Conferencing, and More in 2022
* Potentially mobile version in the future.
Desktop (Mobile as future iteration)
Virtual Reality
Starting point
Spaceform started as a completed functional prototype with years of effort in engineering development but without designers' involvement in its early stage.
My role was to create a new UI for this completed functional prototype to make it well presentable in front of potential investors and clients within the mind of the limited time and budget constraints and with minimal tweaking on the current development.
UI Package
With an overwhelming number of functions available in the prototype/product, it’s critical first to identify the interface hierarchy and then set plans to gradually expand the visual language across the whole experience procedurally.
Function Overview
01. Primary interface
Panels for “slides” navigation, participants’ engagement, communication, and available essential tools.
02. Secondary interface
Interfaces after users have interacted with the scene or primary touchpoints, e.g., tool box, scene gallery, notification pop-up, time adjustment, settings, etc.
03. Tertiary interface
Interfaces that are sitting deeper inside the level of interaction. These are functions that are more complex, and more diverse, and provide an extra level of engagement between the users and the scenes, e.g., measurement, upload
04. Onboarding Experience
The initial onboarding process was linear, so the user had to constantly hit the return button if they wanted to change the options. The steps include inputting names and choosing skin colors, hairstyles, clothes, and genders. To shorten this process, I proposed this wheel mechanism where all steps are compacted into one panel that users could rotate around to choose their options.
Input names
2. Choose skin color
3. Choose hair and clothes
* To make sure the avatar-building options are as inclusive as possible, we not just provided the skin colors from dark to light skins but also offered additional "fun" color options, e.g., blue and purple, to make sure people who don't find their skin colors feel excluded.
