Meeting Room Application

Four Winds Interactive

The Goal

Create an out-of-the-box solution that integrates with a client’s current meeting management software while also allowing them to customize the UI with little development effort.

The Problem

Prior to my involvement, there was already a solution created but it lacked flexibility with regards to integrations. Additionally, the feedback from internal sales teams and clients was that the interface lacked “appeal” and, even when customized, never felt fully designed.

Working on a team with a product manager and developer, we created a solution that seemed very flexible and modular, but limited what the client could do so little to no product involvement was necessary.

Research

With the help of the internal sales teams, we were able to have working sessions with potential customers. We already understood the current pitfalls of the application, so we wanted to understand hollistically how we can find solutions. Without the involvement of the product, how they are currently using and managing their meeting rooms? Are the majority of their meetings formal or quick huddles? Are the rooms near each other or far away? Are the majority of their meetings re-occuring or singular? What is the smallest and largest capacity they have for a meeting room?

Some of these clients had already gone through the process to structure their data to integrate with other solutions in the marketplace that they were wanting to move away from. Being able to hear the process and pain points they went through to structure this data helped us define how our information could be organized.

As a team, we mapped out the use cases we learned from our conversations while taking into account what could actually be accomplished using our core software platform. From these mapping exercises, we iterated on concepts that could be customized to match a client’s aesthetic while also remain out-of-the-box. What could we do that was still exciting? Throughout this process we gathered feedback from our internal sales, product, and design teams.

Design

The final design focused on simplicity and well-defined user actions. Page structures and design components were documented and adhered to by the development team. While many of the previous pages and style definitions had to be removed or reworked, the result was scaleable for the backlog of functionality to come.