What was the problem?

Varty is a web product that produce immersive virtual conferences. You can use arrow key to move around in a virtual scenario, (like a party room, a bar, or a classroom, ) to talk to other participants. Different from most traditional video conference tools, Varty provides versatile meeting experience and help you find make new friends.

However, existing design didn’t optimize the purpose to enhance friendship on Varty. User tend to use Varty as one-time video conference platform, and there is a high drop-off rate after users sign up. 

my responsibilities

As the leading designer of this project, my work involves user research, wireframe, UI, prototyping, HIFI design, content managing. I had a great time working with the founder and core engineer team, contributed to improving both the user experience and visual assets of Varty.

• Redesigned the core user experience for the friending feature, engaged users for authentic interaction and communication.

• Built a new design system which conducts better brand identity, wrote design guidelines and style guides that brought visual consistency. 

Outcome

150%

of user registration rate has been increased

100%

of daily active user rate has been increased

Proposed solution

From previous user research, we got to know users tend to use Varty as a functional tool for actual meeting, whereas our purpose is to diversify the traditional meeting form and create immersive virtual meet for people. Thus, we came up with a solution: Add a friend invitation feature to existing meeting room. Both pros and cons are clear:

• Pros: Friending proves to be working on many social media products, it encourage people to use that platform more and increase user engagement.

• Cons: Probably cause more confusions on how to master Varty.

approach the solution

I went through a lot of design explorations. Starting from what kind of window should apply to the friend module, full screen or a small window? Transparent or opaque? Afterwards, my team chose a small, translucent window for that friend module, because we wanna remain that meeting room view as a core function, and don't cut off users from meeting room scenario. 

Next, me and manager once talked about, except invite button, should we incorporate another button like ”sending email” just to make their communication easier? But later we scratched that idea because what we want is enhance their interactions on Varty platform rather than leading them to other platform. 

Design exploration

Approach1 —

Start from manage my friend

Approach2 —

Start from mini profile

User testing with this solution…

Through testng with 30 users, I got some feedback and here’re 3 main takeaways from them.

Users have inclination to add friends

System default invitation is preferred

Expect add multiple users at once 

And I found 2 iterations we could make…

• Streamline the invite button to just 1 button. Cause previously the default invite and custom invite are on 2 different buttons. And too many choices at same time can cause confusion to users.  

• I talked to my design manager that users are likely to add more than 1 friend at once, and we can apply BULK ADDING feature to cater their needs.  My design manager agreed because the easier we make the invitation flow to be, the more, users are likely to add friends and interact.

BULK ADD

multiple friends at once