Team:
Karan Parikh (Founder, GRS)
David Valentine (Producer)
Yujing Tang (Co-Lead)
Adhiraj Singh (Co-Lead)
Mani Kumar (Front End Engineer)
Amey Godse (Pixel Streaming Engineer)
Apurva Shah (Mentor)
Role:
Research
Strategy
Interaction & Visual design
Prototyping
Testing
Imagine navigating a printout of a website. That's how 3D creators feel when there's no alternative to sharing their real time, interactive experiences other than a static video link.
This project is currently on-going.
We received a Google Cloud Grant to host our platform.
Current Stage: Prototyping & Pre-Visual Design
An MVP based on pixel streaming technology that allows 3D artists to upload their Unreal or Unity projects as high definition, real time & multiplayer interactive experiences and share it, as a link, with anyone to join via their mobile browser.
This would open up new value structures between creators and their audiences.
I co-led the design and development of the MVP in collaboration with
Green Rain Studios (Authorized Unreal Training Center)
Duality Robotics
External Engineering Teams
VFX producer
Current Stage: Prototyping & Pre-Visual Design
The Outcome
Pick an Experience
We currently have 3 experiences on the platform with a goal to open it up to users after the alpha testing phase.
Just like the affordances on TikTok, Reels or Snapchat, a user can scroll vertically to access the other content.
Onboarding
We're still prototyping the ideal experience for our intended user. The user would see a graphic of the two main controls. The first is to move the avatar and second, to look around.
Navigate through the experience
with a touch of your finger
The controls would fade away to maximise the screen real estate.
Exit and Feedback
Click on the top right button to exit the experience and since it's an MVP, we added a module to receive feedback for our metrics.
Sign Up for Alpha Testing
The next step for the project is to add a small group of alpha testers and early adopters to advocate and improve the product.
Process
Design + Engineering Integration schedule
Throughout the process, we worked carefully with our engineers and producers to make sure everyone was aligned with the mission.
Competitive Research
I started by auditing the metaverse landscape. I looked at everything from virtual galleries, Spatial.io, Roblox, Decentraland and a host of other platforms both on desktop and mobile.
With this audit I noticed a lot of pain points both for users and artists. Some were long wait times for content, empty expansive landscapes and an overall bad user experience. Other more established players such as Roblox and Decentraland fell outside our scope for the project.
Methodology
Foundational Research
1:1 interviews to understand participants our target users needs, motivations and pain points.
Evaluative Research
Usability testing to test our prototypes
Desk Research
3 Horizon Mapping
Web 2 & 3 Competitive Tear down
Goals: We interviewed 9 creators with some of the following goals in mind:
Understanding the current system they exist in.
What motivates someone to make content for the metaverse.
Understanding the value of community and the dynamic between fans and digital creators.
"It's not sustainable to keep posting on Instagram. I love new channels to share my work where I can engage with people in new ways"
-PP, 27
"Web 3 being a new space, it offers a fresh start. People with 1K followers are equal to people with 100K"
-TS, 24
Customer Journey Map
We created a journey map for two key touchpoints.
This first is from the point of view of the creator publishing their content and the second is the discovery of this content.
Key Insights
By reflecting on the primary and secondary research, we narrowed down on the following key insights.
1.
3D creators spend hours creating three dimensional spaces but share it as two dimensional, non-interactive videos.
Currently there's no easy way for creators to upload their content and share it with their community, clients or forums.
2.
3D creators have an affinity to new technologies, platforms and softwares for the potential advancement it could bring to their art & careers.
3.
3D creators enjoy their personal work rather than their commissioned work even though their commissioned work pays the bills
Framing the Problem
How might hosting real-time, synchronous 3D content open up new value structures between 3D creators and their community?
Ideation
Personas
Initially I thought to focus on Indie game developers, but after speaking to the 3D artists, we found them better suited based on their psychographic summary.
We categorized all the data from my primary and secondary research into the following archetype.
Buisness Needs / KPI's
After consulting with the engineering team, VFX producers and mentors, we came up with the following KPI's for the MVP.
Engagement
Generate an increase in daily active users and monthly active users
Low bounce rate
Reduce the friction on the platform so that people stay here for longer.
High Sharing frequency
Increase growth by enabling sharing capabilities.
Product Market Fit
After plotting all the value propositions, constraints & target audiences, I identified a unique untapped space in the market.
Prototyping
Values to Features
After crunching the data, KPI's and goals of the project, we plotted the following value propositions that we wanted to see in our platform. These values were then interpreted as features which would then be distributed accordingly in our information architecture.
Information
Architecture
Initially we came up with an MVP that consisted of more rich features such as the ability for a creator to sign up and upload their content, the ability for users to search, filter, like and comment on creators content.
IA - Version 2
However, the goal of the MVP was to gather data on if this was a viable product or not, so instead we decided to focus on the core functionality to test those metrics. The following was the agreed upon information architecture.
Wireframes
We then took the information architecture and prototyped a flow to optimize the experience based on the KPI's and technical constraints & requirements. This included limiting visual elements on top of the screen, interaction between the front end UI and the experience, on-boarding controls, avatar naming and caching considerations, joystick usability and much more.
Testing
I tested the first iteration of the design and had my own thoughts on it.
I took the opportunity to be quick and scrappy and did a quick test with another person without any context and noticed an affordance issue.
“The function is strong but the form, affordances and on-boarding needs work”
-Me testing the experience
"This is really fun but I don't know how to use the two joysticks"
-SY, 26
Current Steps
We are currently on track to launch the MVP by the end of august.
We have a few key interaction paradigms to design for such as the joystick and other interaction measures.
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Email
adhiraj.singh11@gmail.com
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adhirajsingh11/
