Product Designer, Project Lead
2017.02 ~ 2017.05
Web App, Internet Startup, Collaboration, Productivity
Comake is an award-winning startup at Cornell's incubator — ehub. Comake's vision is to improve people’s productivity and collaboration by creating a smart network among people, files and activities. I worked closely with Comake’s CEO to untangle the strategy and the approach of Comake. I worked on essential features included file uploading, file editing and file linking. I also led a 5 people team from the Software Engineering class to work for Comake together.
People are spending a significant amount of time everyday doing unnecessary and upsetting file searching and tracking.
If people can save the time of searching and tracking files. They will have more time to spend on more valuable work.
Transform the file directory into an interconnected network among files, people, tasks, and activities.
How do we build a file linking feature that allows people to build the interconnected network in an easily understandable way?
Comake targets file searching and tracking in design projects. The CEO and I have agreed that architecture design represents the complexity of a more traditional design workflow. We targeted on digital product design, which represents a more iterative process with rapid and intensive communication, collaboration and updates.
Goal: Managing the massive amount of files of a project. Keep tracking of different versions of design.
Behavior: Ben uses cloud storage to store his files. But none of the cloud storage services allows him to preview his 3d models. He does version control by naming files based on versions.
Needs & Quotes:
1. Manage nested files: “A house model can host many room models. A room model can host many furniture models. ”
2. Manage template file and its instances: “My college Bill takes my templates and creates instances with different materials.”
3. Preview files: “3D files are not viewable on web. We have to create a folder for each file with its preview image in it. ”
Keywords:
Management, Version control
Goal: Keep tracking of people's feedback and the iterations of design based on feedback.
Behavior: Alex uses cloud drive to store files. She uses instant message to communicate with the team about design. She uses dropbox to store design files and share with people.
Needs & Quotes:
1. Get feedback: ““Sharing design is always challenging. We communicate about design through Slack and share design through Dropbox. There's no easy way to keep tracking all versions and design decisions been made. ”
2. Reference Multiple Files: “I need to open multiple files when designing, for example, UI kit, PRDs. But they are alway stored in different places”
Keywords: feedback, iteration
The products below have different strengths and approaches. However, they all aim to solve for the communication and collaboration at work, which we believe is the core of bringing productivity to the next level.
Google moves the experience of office suite to the cloud and enhanced the experience by allowing multiple people to work on a same doc. The question is, is the office experience the best practice for collaboration?
Dropbox started as a cloud storage which lowers the burden of local devices and has made file sharing easier than ever. With their new product "Paper", they started to innovate the way people collaborate. However, there is still a way to go in terms of efficient communication.
Slack focuses on communication. Their new thread feature allows people to track the activities of a file/topic/topic. They also start to incorporate features that allows file management and tracking.
GitHub has a very easy to use version control experience for programmers. It is especially convenient for projects that has multiple contributors. What can we can learn from GitHub to make collaborative design easier?
The target use cases of Comake are the variety of design projects. Andres and I agreed that architecture design represents the complexity and the depth of the traditional design projects (interior design, industrial design) well. We also wanted to target on digital product design, which represents a more iterative process with rapid and intensive communication, collaboration and updates.
Two files are related. For example, a sketch file is linked to a PDF requirement document. It is the most common and casual relationship between files.
A file that hosts other files. For example, a house model can be the parent file of a room model in the house.
A file that is hosted by other files. For example, a house model can be the parent file of a room model in the house.
Previous version of the file. For example, a design file after a round of iteration.
The file that is used to generate instance. For example, a chair model that can generate chair with different materials applied.
A viewable version of File that cannot be rendered directly on browsers. For example, 3dMax files.
The target use cases of Comake are the variety of design projects. Andres and I agreed that architecture design represents the complexity and the depth of the traditional design projects (interior design, industrial design) well. We also wanted to target on digital product design, which represents a more iterative process with rapid and intensive communication, collaboration and updates.
Ben: "I finished the second floor of the house, YAY!"
Land on the file page of the house.
Upload the second floor model as a child file of the house.
Review the child file page. The related file and parent file are automatically populates.
Added a task and assigned it to his colleague.
Alex: "I need to incorporate the feedback from the testing yesterday." Review the task list.
Finished! Upload a new version to Comake.
A message prompt to the chat channel.
Uncheck the task items.
Manage connections, child files, recommendations, parent file all in one place.
Track people’s conversations, tasks, activities on each files.
Create links anytime, anywhere.
