Overview
Content creation isn't just a solo job anymore; it's about multiple minds working together as collaboration brings creativity and diverse perspectives, making content richer.
Our goal was to make video creation a seamless team effort by enabling real-time collaboration.
Role
Founding Product Designer
Company
Incredible - a developer video content creation app
Year
2022
Context
Creating content isn't just something people do alone anymore. Instead, more and more creators are teaming up with others to make their content.
The highest request we received was for the ability to include two people in a layout.
Diversity. Collaboration brings diverse perspectives and ideas to the table which leads to unique and more compelling content.
Cross-Promotion. Collaborating with others can expand the reach of content by tapping into each collaborator's audience.
More fun. Working together makes the content creation process more fun, making it more efficient and productive.
Presence
Live avatars are one of the basic elements in collaboration. It enables the user to know who is online with them in the file.
Clicking an avatar allows the user to follow the movement of the collaborator and live-cursors show where they are in the file.
Following a collaborator
The live selection shows what elements people are interacting with in real-time in the properties panel.
Live selection in properties panel
Live carets in notebook allows the user to know where people are typing in.
Live-carets in notebook
Layout
The Invite button on the header allows the user to invite people to the file.
We had 2 roles: owner and contributor.
Invite modal
Invite modal and roles’ popover
The ability to assign users is added right next to the canvas. By default the owner of the file is added as an assignee.
I also updated the user media placeholder to display the name of the assigned user.
Layout with one assignee
On adding another assignee, the layout changes to a 2-person layout.
We decided to focus on perfecting the experience of 2-person layout before adding more. Even though the layout only supports two people, many contributors can be invited to the file to edit content on the notebook and to design the canvas using the properties panel.
Layout with two assignees
Huddle
What's the best part about creating content together? The fun! So, we introduced the huddle feature to allow users to brainstorm, chat and just have fun together.
Starting a huddle
When you’re collaborating, seeing your team can help you feel more connected. We wanted to make people feel like they're in the same room. So, we added the light-weight video huddle feature.
Video huddle
Many users shared that they often enter a recording with the intention to practice, but that’s not a great experience, is it?
So, I leveraged the video huddle feature and created a flow where by moving your cursor over the user media placeholder, your video automatically moves to the placeholder. You can choose to lock it there and practice, or simply move away and continue with your work.
Video huddle lock
Recording
As the recording screen looked different and is separate from the notebook, it felt like a separate experience. I wanted to bridge this gap and make it one seamless experience.
Old recording screen
I added the recording screen as an overlay on top of the notebook.
I also added the ability to move notes around so the user can choose where to place it according to their preference.
New recording experience
A recording session with 2 people is tricky. There were so many questions like ‘Who controls the canvas movements?’ ‘Who starts and stops the recording?’ and more.
So I decided to create an experience where the host controls the recording - canvas controls, start/stop recording and turn on/off guest audio.
The host's recording experience
The guest will follow the host during the recording. This ensures that both the host and the guest are in the same place in the recording.
The guest's recording experience
