Making Meetings Suck Less

Enhancing Liberating Structures

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Overview

Liberating Structures is a revolutionary methodology for meeting facilitation which reimagines the ways we meet, plan, decide and relate to one another. Originally published as a book in 2014, it was developed into a mobile app in 2018 by German software developer Holisticon.

What I Did

  • Explored enhancing accessibility and interactivity of existing app
  • Made the content and product more intuitive for new & seasoned users
CLIENT
Liberating Structures
TIMELINE
2-weeks
PLATFORM
iOS Mobile App
ROLE
Research, Strategy, Wireframing, Prototyping, Testing, Visual Design

The

Challenge

While the content of the LS app is beloved, it quickly became apparent to two new users that the current experience was not very inclusive or intuitive.

With opaque language, unclear categorization and a lot of text, it felt more like a book disguised as an app, with no real ways of interacting with it.

These problems were not just isolated to LS beginners but to seasoned facilitators alike. It became clear we needed to make an inclusive, intuitive app that could be as hands on or off to our users' unique facilitation flows and began the research process to find the best solutions.

Methods

User Interviews
We developed Lisa after interviewing four users scattered across the globe & synthesizing that data through affinity mapping. This helped my team to narrow our research to our top 3 findings and keep her at the forefront of our solutions.
Lisa Needs Help
C&C Analysis
feature inventory
While Liberating Structures does not have any direct competitors, my teammate looked at several digital products whose foundations are in virtual meeting facilitation to see what features could be most helpful to Lisa and her goals.
Information Architecture
With solutions in mind it was time to bring some clarity to our research with an app map for organizing the rich LS content, and a userflow to map Lisa’s experience of our agenda building feature.

Iteration

With our solution roadmap solidified, we dove into a Design Studio session, focusing on our hero “build a meeting” feature flow. We ideated apart for 5 minutes, then would converge, critique and synthesize to capture our best solutions.
Wireframes & Prototypes
We first focused on reimagining the general layout to allow for easier browsing of structures for both new and seasoned users. The new use of cards in the interface enabled us to introduce some of that more accessible language and categorization the app needed.
The same concept of typographical hierarchy and accessible language was also brought to the structure details page where the content could be broken up visually and make the digestion of it more interactive.
We also gave Lisa the option for even more interactivity by being able to build and run a meeting with the help of the app in our "Build a Meeting" Hero Feature.

Evaluation

Usability Testing 1.0
Of the four users we tested, most of the issues they encountered occurred on the structure detail screen. With this user feedback in hand, we implemented changes and visual design before conducting a second round of testing, focusing on that structure detail page.
Usability Testing 2.0
We tested an additional four users with our changes, and they were able to validate those changes by being able to find the "How to Facilitate" section faster and the expandable instructions more intuitive.
Iphones with Liberating Structures app redesign screens

Deliverables

Final Product
Design System
Liberating Structures design system, logo, colors, fonts & buttons