Equavoice®
Startup - Product, UX Research, UI Design, Accessibility
Equavoice is an accessibility first collaboration tool that gives every attendee a chance to have an equal voice. It also gives presenters a way to gauge participation, and provide extra help to those that may need it. While Equavoice started as a student project while I was pursing my post-grad studies, it is now an early stage startup.
CASE STUDY
October 2021 - Present - Application under development (as a weekend project)
The Context/Background
The online world has given people the flexibility and choice for participation in group meetings and learning environments like never before. They are able to use polls, private chats, digital annotations etc. to participate at their own comfort level.
As we transitioned back to an in person world, we learned about the effects of the pandemic on social anxiety. While this is not a new problem, it became much bigger and much more prominent.
While there are tools like digital whiteboards and quiz platforms available, there are some inherent issues that they lack in addressing.
The Problem
As we go back to in-person classrooms and conferences, the quiter people lose their voice. Moderators will have to rethink how to get people involved and track where participation lacks. Multiple tools may be required to be used at the same time which poses a challenge for the moderator to manage.
Digital whiteboarding tools are not very accessible for the disabled community as well as for those that are not tech savvy. Whiteboarding tools also don’t offer a way to easily “track” participation, which is crucial when trying to address grades or competitive/order-wise participation.
Quiz platforms may not offer opportunities to ask questions or get everyone involved.
The Solution
To create a product that can:
Help keep ALL voices alive by giving people the tools to participate at their own comfort levels.
To also give moderators a way to track how much/ how little someone is participating. This will help them provide extra help to those that might need it most, but are often unable to ask for it.
The Progress
Project Management on Notion
Lo-fi/Mid-fi Ideation
Hi-fi Wireframes + Overseeing Development
In late 2022, I found a partner to continue working on this project. In early 2023, we decided to keep the product bootstrapped for now, because we realized that accessibility needs to be our number one priority, and bringing in investors may force us to lose control over this crucial differentiating factor of this product.
In the summer and Fall of 2023, we designed and developed a minimum viable product. Through a lot of scope creep and trying to hone in on the product's requirements, we delayed our first testing.
Currently, the team is building a roadmap and mapping a true product market fit. It needs to be tested further for accessibility (as we simaltaneously refine our core offering) before we take next steps to further pitch it to the world.
While I am not certain where this project will go moving forward, it’s given me an opportunity to step outside my regular design-centric responsibilities and challenged me to consider many other aspects of building a SaaS product.
From leading product development to handling finances for 2 part time employees, I got to learn a ton!
I am happy to share more about this product if you’re interested.