FreshVoice is a enterprise video conferencing solution developed by Anet. I was tasked to redesign the iPhone application using existing functionality from their desktop product. The challenge here was designing a enitrely new user interface that followed recommended iOS guidelines, while still providing a consistent user experience in both English & Japanese.
FreshVoice for iPhone was developed out of necessity and was quickly developed by a programmer. No thought had actually gone into the actual branding of the application or the overall UX/UI design. Hence, I was tasked to redesign the iPhone application from scratch.
All of the functionality had been decided, so it was a case of designing a user experience that was intuitive, quick and simple to use both in portrait and landscape views.
I was tasked by creating a new brand identity from the CEO. He wanted to expand to international markets and have a logo and color scheme that resonated with Western style software companies.
FreshVoice users are setup with a secure connection and require two stage authentication to reach the application.
FreshVoice enterprise users have preloaded directories of contacts to their company. From these contacts they are further segmented into individual and branch users.
Group and multi-participant calls is the most widely used feature for FreshVoice. They are able to facilitate calls with up to 16 guests with minimal latency and video quality. It was imperative to enable iPhone users a simple way to highlight contacts in both the individual and branch views. I did this using touch and swipe gestures.
There are multiple calling states for both individual and group calls, each had to be designed independently. I used gradient colors to highlight individual (green) and group (blue) calls.
Once in a call, there is advanced functionality to order how the video grid is displayed depending on how many participants are present.
In call navigation differed once the user turned their screen horizontally. To preserve space and focus attention on video call itself I moved menu items into two buttons in each corner. Once opened the users could navigate to similar screens.
Animating the corner navigation menus with Principle for Mac allowed me to finely tune timings and easing curves.
While in a call, users have options for various interactions including: text chat, document sharing, in-call settings and connection status. The document sharing is compatible with all known file formats so special attention had to be taken into account when designing for images, presentations and video. There is also an advanced feature for call “chairmans” to synchronize documents to same pages, video cuepoints and image zooms.
Comparisons between old and new design
The redesign of the application is currently in Beta testing with internal team members. However, recent results show that users spend 40% longer in the app.