Overview
Problem
Research & Development
User Testing
Final Design
Details
Ekoo
Visual & Interactive Online Collaboration
Reimagine remote
3D art production.
UI/UX Design
Saas Product
User Testing
Gesture Control
Ekoo Digital Asset Management System is a cloud-based solution developed specifically for game art production. It is based on the needs of game content production and collaboration teams online.

Ekoo connects all data together, helping teams to produce high-standard digital assets in a more efficient and visualized manner.
YEAR
2021
PROJECT TYPE
Academic
OTHER CONTRIBUTOR
UX Research & UX Design Contributors
Haoran Xu, Duoning Zheng, Cynthia Lee
Reimagine remote
3D art production.
Web Design
Saas Product
User Testing
Gesture Control
Ekko Digital Asset Management System is a cloud-based solution developed specifically for game art production. It is based on the needs of game content production and outsourcing collaboration teams during the pandemic.

Ekko connects all data together, helping teams to produce high-standard digital assets in a more efficient and visualized manner.
YEAR
2021
PROJECT TYPE
Academic
OTHER CONTRIBUTOR
UX Research & UX Design Contributors
Haoran Xu, Duoning Zheng, Cynthia Lee
01 Project Brief
The original idea was developed by me and my ux research group members. Our group spent 10 weeks researching user needs and summarizing market insights.

At the end of the project, we got some voices saying whether these functions and interactions really work for users?

To better refine the project, I created some user testing tasks, and used Unity combined with Leap Motion to develop a prototype to help me better test user usability. After further testing and interviews, I designed and improved Ekoo.
02 The Challenge
3D art design team needs help.
In 2020, the first year of the official outbreak, most companies had to move their work online. So this challenge actually came from designers at Blizzard, who mentioned that being online was far less productive than working offline. Our group wanted to help the game production industry design a solution.

We both understand it is hard to collaborate online

But why exactly?

03 Define the problem
User & Stakeholder Interview, Analysis, Surveys, Focus groups
To further understand our users, we conducted interviews and questionnaires with people in various positions in the game production industry, such as designers and animators. And also relevant stakeholders to find out their needs.
‍
Interviewees included 20 people from Blizzard, Activision, Watchdog, Tencent Timi and other studios.
04 Main Painpoints
Heterogeneous users
Game 3D design teams typically consist of individuals with diverse skill sets and working habits, including text editors, concept creators, 2D and 3D designers, and animators. This can make it challenging to collaborate effectively online.
A game production team may have 31 different roles, and the work pipeline is not necessarily a linear process.
Multiple communication needs
While there are many powerful 3D design software tools available, it can be challenging to work collaboratively on these assets in real-time due to the different file types and the complexity of the designs in the team.
Inconsistency, Infrequent updates
The various project files for 3d production are large and it is difficult to synchronize the various versions with the team. Due to the fact of working remotely, unfortunately, the art director has no other way to view each file than to download and import it himself.
05 So, Ekoo's Goal
Help game design teams organize a wide range of working documents and multi-media feedback through intuitive documentation & task visualization, and easy-to-use annotation methods.
06 Competitor Research
What's wrong with the current game design documentation used by the team?
According to the research, the game design document (GDD) is the basis for team collaboration in a game team.
‍
We conducted a week of competitive analysis to determine the strengths and weaknesses of similar products. The most direct competitor was Arthub (Level 1) and indirect competitors were products such as Arcweave, Jira and Google Docs (Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4).

For these competitors, we compared 4 main aspects: target audience, first impressions, functionality, and user experience. Opinions were obtained from user interviews as well as market research.

We were able to identify how the current products do not meet the needs of the users, the main points are as follows.‍
  • Direct competitor Arthub does an excellent job of classifying files, but the readability of information is not high.
  • While using the competitor product, interviewees reported a low perception of collaboration and a low sense of synchronization.
‍Level 1    Products with the same core services and users.
Level 2   Products with the same core users. These products do not provide our core functions and services. Relevant functions and services may be added through upgrades/updates.
Level 3   Products with different target groups but similar functions and services.
Level 4   Products with the same core target users but aim to meet different needs. They are not likely to become our competition.
More importantly,
Competing products in the market fail to satisfy our users because the pain points of heterogeneous users are simply not being attended to.
"While the designers want the functionality to build on their existing habits, the team leaders focused on getting the job done on time and with quality."

‍For 3D art team members, the solution should build on their existing work habits and context to address emerging 3D annotation and collaboration issues.
‍
For art lead or design managers, the solution should facilitate progress tracking and should increase team productivity.
‍
For concept design and copy base members, the solution should be more intuitive to help them organize and find different versions of the draft.
07 Sketch & Wireframes
Bringing ideas to life!
After getting the basic insights, we conducted a round of sketch brainstorming for in-depth interviews and user process testing.

However, the feedback we got from users was not ideal, our users basically mentioned that this version, while taking into account their current needs and pain points, was overall not very different from other software they were using.
Considering the learning costs associated with using new software, they would not be willing to use our product and would rather be stuck in the previous product.
08 Back to Research
No fear of failure, try again!
Based on the feedbacks, we thought the problem might be in some detailed UX considerations. We decided to do another round of competitive analysis to focus on understanding the Usability Performance of different features through user usability evaluation and interviews.

Through the evaluation, we found that:
  • For office software, users are concerned about the speed of finding information, although some competing products have the need to focus on the classification of multiple information for the game team. However, the attention to detail user experience and micro interaction is not high. This can be seen from the performance scores of Visual Hierarchy, Layout & Data Format of competing products.
  • In terms of team collaboration, competing products are concerned with the performance of task tracking, which is something we should learn from. However, users believe that their needs for team communication cannot be satisfied by "chat" and "message" only, but they want to keep in sync in every aspect of work.
Usability Performance
09 Lo-Fi Prototype
Let's do prototype!
Further translate the design concept and information structure into a tangible representation for verification.
10 User Testing
What are the areas of confusion and hidden opportunities?
We invited 5 key users to participate in our user testing, and insights supported our final decision.
‍
What should we improve based on the testing:
  • Customization
    The different roles of users influence their preferences and this experience tells them how to arrange their document screens.
  • Reduce Friction
    Due to the complexity of the game production digital assets, the user experience of finding information needs to be optimized.
  • Orientation & Legibility
    In an environment of high information density, orientation can suffer, leading to high cognitive load and frequent moments of refocussing.
  • Reduce Conflicts
    While doing user testing we found that when art directors or others were conducting design review sessions they wanted to be able to manipulate 3D assets, but this could lead to software conflicts.
11 Final Design Based on Insights
Solved Painpoint
Inconsistency, Infrequent updates
Progress tracking System
Highly personalized dashboard that displays tasks and content based on the user's responsibilities.
Design Considerations
Solved Painpoint
Multiple communication needs
Visualized documentation (GDD)
Visualized file system designed to quickly find the right file and feedback to process.
Design Considerations
Solved Painpoint
Multiple communication needs
Color Coded Task Management
By using color coding, users can quickly and easily identify tasks that require attention, track progress, and prioritize work based on urgency or importance.
Design Considerations
Solved Painpoint
Heterogeneous users
Easy to use annotations designed for different habits
Draw
- An intuitive and quick annotation tool but in low-fidelity.
-Serve for both synchronous and asynchronous annotation.
Design Considerations
Solved Painpoint
Heterogeneous users
Easy to use annotations designed for different habits
Comment
- A detailed annotation method especially friendly to non-drawing experts such as project managers and writers.
- Serve for both synchronous and asynchronous annotation.
Design Considerations
Solved Painpoint
Heterogeneous users
Easy to use annotations designed for different habits
Skeleton System
- A precise and professional annotation method but could be time-consuming.
- Serve for both synchronous and asynchronous annotation.
Design Considerations
12 And a more creative exploration...
Solved Painpoint
Heterogeneous users, Multiple communication needs
Gesture control
Designed for easily presenting the details of the model in online discussions.
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13 More research

Research.

  &   Iteration.

User Interview Code
Industry Research - Position
Industry Research - Work Flow
Industry Research - Company
Business Research - Trend & Issue
Competitor Analysis
Competitor Analysis - Positioning Matrix
Competitor Analysis - Opportunity Position
User Journey
Behaviroal Continuum
Team Work Flow
Information Architecture
User Flow
Paper Prototype
Usability Testing
Tree Testing
Card sorting
14 What I learned
Context is significant to define.

Context is the starting point when creating visualization. During design We need to ask ourselves questions such as “ who, what, when, how” in order to decide our context. The team can also decide the feature and experience according to context.
Not letting your anticipation limit your ideas.

Sometimes we are used to using an expected answer when we get a question. In this project, I enjoyed the process of overviewing the app’s functional part and listening to the users’ experience, their stories, and being an active listener.
It helps me understand the user’s pain better. It’s normal if we are not standing in the same position and we could not easily feel the same way as our target users.
Ⓒ Zoe Yutong Zhang, 2023
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