UI/UX Realwear Collaborate 2
UX/UI, 2024
- Role
- UI/UX Designer
- Company
- Almer Technologies / RealWear
- Methodology
- Design Thinking
- Year
- 2024
Project Overview
Collaborate Teams 2 is a hands-free collaboration tool designed for Microsoft Teams users on RealWear headsets. The application was completely redesigned to optimize usability for Augmented Reality (AR) and Extended Reality (XR) devices, supporting hands-free interaction for frontline workers. The redesign focused on improving clarity, navigation speed, and accessibility in high-intensity environments, ensuring workers could collaborate seamlessly without removing their hands from their tasks.
Design Thinking Process
Empathize
- Observed challenges in the existing app: small touch targets, complex navigation, slow access to critical functions.
- Identified user needs: fast call joining, clear feedback, and the ability to multitask without interrupting workflow.
Define
- Framed the design problem: adapt the Microsoft Teams interface for full hands-free control in AR/XR.
Defined priorities: simplified navigation, optimized layout for AR field of view, and responsive voice interaction.
Created user journey maps for key scenarios: starting/joining meetings, sharing content, and switching between tasks.
Ideate
- Explored alternative interaction models: purely voice-driven commands, voice plus minimal gestures, and voice with visual overlays.
- Brainstormed ways to surface the most-used functions contextually, reducing screen clutter.
- Collaborated with developers to ensure compatibility with RealWear voice recognition and system-level controls.
Prototype
- Designed low- and high-fidelity prototypes in Figma to simulate interaction states: idle, listening, processing, and confirmation.
- Developed AR-friendly layouts with large, high-contrast elements and minimal cognitive load.
- Created voice flow diagrams to handle different user intents and error recovery.
Test
- Conducted usability testing with users in simulated field conditions.
- Collected feedback on command recognition accuracy, response speed, and UI clarity.
- Iterated design to improve visibility, reduce visual clutter, and streamline voice flows.
- Final design deployed with an adaptive UI that scales across RealWear headset models.
Outcome
- Reduced average time to join meetings by over 35%.
- Improved task success rate in high-noise environments.
- Delivered a consistent, hands-free Teams experience optimized for AR/XR devices.
