Kickback Space

Kick back and meet well.

Revitalize Your Meetings with Unmatched Engagement for Elevated Learning, Collaboration, and Culture.

  • my contribution

    Product Designer, UX Researcher, UX Designer, UI Designer with an emphasis on user navigation and movement in a virtual space

  • contributors

    • Ellie Tsuji

    • Adithi Deepak

  • focus

    • Product State: prelaunch

    • Web-based design

    • Virtual learning environments

  • duration

    December 2023 - Current

Overview

This case study is the first project post-completion of the User Experience Design course with General Assembly. 

Upon reviewing the initial client brief, I became aware that while a target audience was already identified, the product would be an entirely new experience for users. 

Our design decisions are based on user interview insights and our assumptions - in conjunction - with our understanding of how design for virtual-reality applications.

The Problem

The founders have tasked us to define and prioritize the problems to solve for, while creating an engaging learning environment.

Goals

As a team, our first goal was to define and prioritize the set of problems to solve.

Our next goal was to develop an intuitive navigation structure with minimal existing data by empathetically anticipating user needs and applying general UX principles. This is goal is currently in-progress.

Collaborating with the co-founders Rocco and Brandon, we will each complete a Feasibility, Desirability, and Viability Scorecard activity to rank the solutions that would be implemented. 

For users, we aim to make Kickback Space the best learning experience they’ve encountered virtually and to do it in a way that fosters learning new skills and engaging with others.

User Research

Methods:

Discovery Interviews, Heuristic Evaluation, Feasibility, Desirability, and Viability Scorecard, User Flows

Upon joining Kickback Space, we were given access to the user interviews in otter.ai which offered us the most insight into the target audience. Collecting details on their roles and understanding how they currently navigate their learning environments and the challenges they face with virtual learning. 

We’ve concluded that an ideal persona would likely have the following traits:

  • Tech savy and have faciltated in-person and virtual learning sessons

  • Possess a background in education

  • Love learning

Problem Identification

Despite building relationships with the target audience, our client, Kickback Space, made us aware that they were having trouble defining and prioritizing the set of problems to design for that would eventually inform the product roadmap. 

Kickback Space’s current design supports users to join the virtual reality space, receive a short tutorial experience and move about the space with others. However, it was not clear how the experience would translate into an educational learning environment. There isn’t yet a formalized onboarding process that introduces users to this new product in a way that demonstrates in full capabilities, all while leveraging elements of familiarity in the virtual learning space.

Kickback Space is currently in a pre-launch phase, with users joining a waitlist to receive product launch updates.

Based on the existing user interviews in conjunction with our understanding of design principles applied to virtual reality, we’ve developed a list of domains and sub-domains that define potential problems that users may encounter and we’ve crafted potential solutions that address those set of problems.

Design Process

At this time, we’ve yet to build out user flows that map out how users will navigate Kickback because we’re still in the process of prioritizing the items on the roadmap. 

From there, we’ve yet to determine the exact steps that detail how users will accomplish the tasks that address their pain point while also experiencing a new way to meet and learn online.