CURRENT PROJECT
An anti-distraction platform for better conversations, later.
Instantly capture the thoughts that matter while giving everyone time to process. Because connection isn’t just about showing up - it is about showing up prepared to discuss the things that matter.
Brief.
Eleven, is audio based. It works on the premise that someone can quickly send a voice note/message to their manager and vice versa. No menu diving, no searching. Users had to be presented with the people they are connected with, and begin recording as quickly as possible.
The rise of audio notes.
In recent years sending audio message has jumped up in terms of a quick convenient communication medium. Love it or hate it, it’s here to stay. Research suggests that it’s not only convenient to some, but also often a better way to communicate entirely, and provides a more human form of communication.
Personas
Elevens key vertical is the relationship between manager and employee (or IC). Typically the only time where in depth conversations can happen is during a 1 to 1. Despite the very evidence to suggest that managers to want to better support their employees these meetings are often not setup for success, are often glossed over, or even skipped.
Emily, the New Role Navigator.
Recently transitioned into a project coordination role within a tech company. She's eager to succeed but feels overwhelmed by the learning curve and new responsibilities. She's relying on her one-on-one meetings with her manager to gain clarity and support.
Key Goals.
Understand new role.
Build confidence.
Get manager guidance.
Key Pain Points.
Role uncertainty.
Hesitation to ask questions.
Difficulty prioritizing.
David, the Supportive Manager.
A seasoned project manager. He values team development and recognises the challenges of onboarding new team members. He wants to ensure Emily's success in her new role and provides clear guidance and support during their one-on-one meetings.
Key Goals.
Onboard Emily effectively.
Provide clear support.
Empower Emily.
Key Pain Points.
Balancing support with workload.
Providing correct guidance.
Identifying roadblocks.
User flow.
Disregarding the basics of an application, it was more important to focus on the user flow of people using Eleven. This gave me a better understanding of just how convenient recording and listening to messages was at the forefront.
Sending
Select recipient.
Employee selects colleague from connections list.
Record message.
Employee records question and thoughts with Eleven.
Select recipient.
Audio is sent to recipient to listen at their convenience.
Receiving
See ‘New’ indicator.
Manager opens app to see a new message is present.
Listen to message(s).
Hears tone, and cadence so they can really hear what is being said.
Reply if necessary.
Reply either within’ Eleven or in person during a meeting.
Exploration.
Even though there are a plethora of applications that utilise a way to send audio messages. It was difficult to find those that purely used audio only. I was stuck between the current communication tools, Apples/Android Messages, WhatsApp etc. and realtime audio services such as Zoom or Google Meet.
Despite this it was still valuable to look at how these applications handled audio as a whole. There were plenty of examples of not only the recording side of the experience, but also displaying the audio itself. It was also interesting to see how threading, and contacts where handled.
From this I managed to isolate what was needed for the first version;
Contact list.
The contact list was the first screen that people would hit when they opened Eleven. It needed to show a list of contacts that could be easily scanned further reducing the time-to-record. There were two options we had for the list;
Traditional style list of contacts.
Pros.
Cons.
Image heavy contact list.
Pros.
Cons.
Exploring avatar interactions.
Despite some reservations regarding the use of Avatars for contacts, I felt it was something worth exploring. The premise of Eleven is to strengthen connections, especially a small selection of them. Having the visual representation of the person would help to garner this.
One of the things I wanted to explore is whether we could use the avatar as targets for interaction. Making it even quicker to record your message, without having to go into a thread.
Hold to record.
I started by exploring a ‘hold to record’ interaction. Where users would find the avatar, hold it, which would then start the recording of the audio. Upon release the audio would be sent.
Message indicator.
This then led me to looking at using the avatar container as a way to display if there was a new message to be listened to. Utilising a classic waveform and play button. Audio could be heard in the initial contact screen.
Understanding issues.
Like with most exploration there are always as many questions as there are answers. After some testing internally I found the following.
Striping back complexity.
Several iterations later. Including a treatment to have a persistent recording track present, therefore allowing a clear indicator of the user recording a message. I decided, due to complexity, and time that a simple avatar (for now) would be the clearest option.
Finalising the avatar.
Taking all the feedback, one of the main points was to increase the target area. Despite not going down the route of the connection interactions, it would still serve as a good option to explore.
This would also play into allowing users to scan their connection rapidly, as the images would be much larger.
Below shows the difference between the initial treatment, and the adjustments made.
Final connections screen.
Having tested several options for the connection screen. The avatar grid provides the perfect way of users to quickly find the contact they wish to send a message to. As well as a clear indicator for new messages.
Not the full story.
This is just a small snippet of the work I have been doing for Eleven. I am aiming to continue to update this case study, but I would much prefer to do actual work. Feel free to get in touch and I can walk you through the rest of it.