From Hack to Product Feature - How to leverage R&D at work through hackathons

A presentation at A11yVR meetup by Roland Dubois

From Hack to Product Feature How to leverage R&D at work through hackathons — From Hack to Product Feature How to leverage R&D at work through hackathons
July 16, 2020 #A11yVR meetup.com/a11yvr Roland Dubois @rolanddubois

Hello, I’m Roland Dubois — Hello, I’m Roland Dubois
Product Designer, Leader, Manager Recently, Product UX Lead at a SaaS Startup XR Accessibility at Virtuleap Mozilla Tech Speaker Member of W3C Immersive Web CG & XR Access Initiative Host of WebXR (A-Frame NYC) workshops & events Creating immersive experiments that make the current VR/AR industry accessible for everyone.

Agenda — Agenda
Design & Maturity Facility Management The Ideas That Don’t Fit Find Your Hackathon Hack & Open-Source Build Your Case At Work

Design & Maturity

Design in Startups — Design in Startups
Startups are scrappy & messy “… growing pains”
No time or energy to experiment beyond the product roadmap
Focus on product-market fit
Sales team is the main driver
Design keeps up with the agile dev team
Accessibility is deprioritized “… receiving ADA compliance letters are a cost of doing business …”

What is Design/UX Maturity? — What is Design/UX Maturity?
It’s a scale that measures the business relationship with design. Increasing the maturity of design in a company is not something that can be done overnight. It can take years. But it happens every day in small steps.

5 Stages of UX Design Maturity by Jared Spool — 5 Stages of UX Design Maturity by Jared Spool
Dark Ages (no UX Design) Spot UX Design UX Design as a Service Embedded UX Infused UX Design (Everyone has fluent design skills)

5 Stages of UX Design Maturity by Jared Spool — 5 Stages of UX Design Maturity by Jared Spool
Dark Ages (no UX Design) Spot UX Design
Area of opportunity -
UX Design as a Service Embedded UX Infused UX Design (Everyone has fluent design skills)

What is DesignOps? — What is DesignOps?
Bridge between product/sales, engineering, and design
Design delivery pipeline (design process)
Build and strengthen product features
Keep the design/UX accessible (WCAG guidelines)
User research
Active feedback loop with the customer
Strategic planning with product/sales

Facility Management

Facility management (FM) in a hospital complex — Facility management (FM) in a hospital complex
LMU Klinikum Großhadern in Munich Germany, built in 1977 expanded until today. With over 2.000 beds, over 10.000 staff, approx. 1.800 physicians, and 500.000 patients per year. One of the largest clinic complexes in Europe. LMU Klinikum Großhadern

Behind the Scenes — Behind the Scenes
HVAC Units Power plant Generators Construction Outages Circuit Boxes Fire Escape Routes Fires IC Unit Fire Elevators LMU Klinikum Großhadern

User Personas — User Personas
Airflow Control Security System Lighting & Energy Director bam.com Manager Supervisor Dispatcher Worker/Specialist cselectrical.org
Age 35-65 (aging workforce) Union Workers Veterans Engineering degrees Limited resources LMU Klinikum Großhadern Controllers apleona.com Sensors Control Valves BAS/BMS

FM Tools — FM Tools
cognitive overload
no color-a11y
flat visuals for a spatial environment
keyboard accessible

Customer Pain Points — Customer Pain Points
FM team is working reactively rather than proactively
Budgets are tight and resources (workers) are limited
Operation and quality of work can’t be measured
Building automation system (BAS) alarm data doesn’t provide meaningful context
Root causes of problems are impossible to discover quickly

Opportunities to explore — Opportunities to explore
Traditional 2D data-visualization (on the product roadmap) Traditional 2D data-visualization (on the product roadmap)
Displaying Alarms in one concise and contextualized way
Tracking quality of work
Presenting clean and accessible interfaces
Opportunity for web-based 3D / XR visualization (outside the product roadmap)
Where is the problem located? Show alarm data in a spatial context
What is the context, root cause of the problem? Show other alarms in spatial relationships
Where is the person to solve the problem? Show the position of the workforce
How can we measure to improve resource management? Calculate how long it will take to get a worker to check and solve the problem

Ideas That Don’t Fit

What if your ideas don’t fit the product roadmap? — What if your ideas don’t fit the product roadmap?
Hypothesis Visualizing alarm data in its spatial context improves the speed and quality of problem assessment and resolution.
Challenge Keeping the app interface …
keyboard accessible
screen readable
progressively enhancing: 2D ⇨ 3D ⇨ AR/VR

What if your ideas don’t fit the product roadmap? — What if your ideas don’t fit the product roadmap?
Create an ideal user story
List the user pain points
Abstract and generalize
Share your goals and build a minimum viable product (MVP)

1. User Story — 1. User Story
The dispatcher receives a call from a nurse about high temperatures in the OR The dispatcher looks at the alarm data coming from sensors in rooms on the floor The dispatcher sees an issue with the chiller The dispatcher adds the chiller issue on a work order The dispatcher looks for a specialist to send to fix the chiller issue The dispatcher sends out the work order and sees time estimate when the work will start Worker receives a work order and fixes the chiller and completes the work order The dispatcher sees that the room temperature returned to a normal range - the work was successful

2. List of pain points — 2. List of pain points
Data quality problem
Where is the problem located?
What systems are connected or close to the problem?
Where is the worker to solve the problem?
Math problem
How long will it take for the worker to get there?
When is the problem solved?
Logistical problem
How can the software create 3D models without needing external resources?
Need: Scalable device-independent and easily maintainable solution
Need: Accessible for screen-readers and keyboard navigation, AT

3. [Abstract] and generalize — 3. [Abstract] and generalize
Data quality problem
Static objects (locations) and moving objects (people) with property data (metadata)
Math problem
Calculating the distance between objects and estimating time
Indoor navigation, travel paths
Logistical problem
Open-source code stack
Converting 2D SVG/Canvas drawings into 3D models

3. Abstract and [generalize] — 3. Abstract and [generalize]
Government-funded institutions (e.g. hospitals, research labs, educational facilities, and universities) aren’t able to showcase their buildings in an interactive 3D way because there is no fallback for assistive technology.
Why?
Strict ADA compliance guidelines.
Section 508, 503.
No standards for accessible 3D and XR experiences.
Current solutions seem sufficient.
https://web.mit.edu/campus-map/pdf/mit-accessibility-color-current.pdf

4. Share your goals — 4. Share your goals
As a user, I want to …
be able to navigate digital buildings with any device in any dimension.
know where to go and how long it will take to get there.
Devices: mobile, tablet, desktop, VR headset and AR glasses.
1D TTS, screen readers
2D/3D Flat screens, touch displays
AR/VR/MR Mobile, HMD, and glasses

Find Your Hackathon

Find Your Hackathon — Find Your Hackathon
Choose an event that provides enough time and support for you to realize your MVP
Look for industry specific events (AEC Hackathon, AT&T Hackathon, T-Mobile Hacktober, XR Edu Challenge)
Look for university sponsored events (MIT Reality Hack, NYUAD Hackathon, HackXR (UCSD), HackPrinceton)
Consider length of the event (SXSW Hackathon - 24h)
Who’s attending? Is it inclusive, are there efforts towards a11y?
What’s the event mission? Is there an alignment with your project?
Browse on Devpost

Hack & Open-Source

MIT Reality Hack - January 16-20, 2020

Hackathon Title: ProgressivelyEnhancedIndoorNavigationWebXR — Hackathon Title: ProgressivelyEnhancedIndoorNavigationWebXR
Feature goals:
Scalable ecosystem
Low entry barrier
Open-source code
Device independency
Web-based framework
User-relevant metadata inside a building

screenshots

screenshots

Challenges with Indoor Navigation — Challenges with Indoor Navigation
Imprecision in directions
Navigation of unknown areas
Lack of visibility and occlusion
Unknown spatial conditions (construction)
Unreliable mapping - Definition of indoor boundaries (manual, time-consuming)
User orientation and position (hard to define)

Our Solution for Indoor Navigation — Our Solution for Indoor Navigation
Creation of a spatial navigation grid. Enabling a safe and effective indoor guidance system for users. Inspired by “grid pathfinding” in game development.

Code Stack — Code Stack
WebXR API

Usertest your project with other hackers!

Build Your Case At Work

Build Your Case At Work — Build Your Case At Work
Share your hackathon project in a lunch & learn
Showcase what user pain points your project solves including user test results / collected feedback
Re-adapt your hackathon project to the initial product feature
Create task flows, wireframes, and a clickable prototype
Put your idea into the product roadmap

Build Your Case At Work

Build Your Case At Work — Build Your Case At Work
Looking Glass Factory - Holographic touch display 3D visualization on a laptop browser

Recap — Recap
Design & Maturity Facility Management The Ideas That Don’t Fit Find Your Hackathon Hack & Open-Source Build Your Case At Work

Events and Meetups

Get in Touch — Get in Touch
Resources Design Maturity https://articles.uie.com/beyond_ux_tipping_point/ https://uxdesign.cc/a-framework-for-measuring-design-maturity-8f
Hackathons Devpost, AEC Hackathon, AT&T Hackathon, T-Mobile Hacktober, XR Edu Challenge, MIT Reality Hack, NYUAD Hackathon, HackXR (UCSD), HackPrinceton, SXSW Hackathon
Accessibility Resources https://xraccess.org/resources/ https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/
WebXR https://immersiveweb.dev/ https://www.meetup.com/A-Frame-NYC/

Roland Dubois
@rolanddubois

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Don't miss this @A11yVR Meetup on July 16th at 7pm EST: "From Hack to Product Feature - How to Leverage R&D at Work Through #HackaThons" (Speaker is XR Access member @RolandDubois w/ host @TechThomas) https://t.co/HPKl9Z7fQC #a11y
— XR Access (@XRAccess) July 13, 2020
Come learn from @rolanddubois about innovative ways to leverage hackathons to bring in new XR product feature ideas or outside-the-box concepts to your organization. Happening in Mozilla Hubs this Thursday (16 July) at 7pm EDT / 4pm PST!https://t.co/KEbLMHNcqN pic.twitter.com/hU5cjMGD05
— A11yVR (@A11yVR) July 15, 2020
How can you quickly scale up XR projects? @rolanddubois will be discussing leveraging hackathons to design and test new product features at this week’s @A11yVR Meetup.

Sign up Here! https://t.co/c0bd5BuVxu #a11y #VR #XR #XRHacks pic.twitter.com/Tweu7PGgZU
— Equal Entry LLC (@Equal_Entry) July 15, 2020
Struggling to integrate XR projects in your roadmap? @rolanddubois will be discussing how to leverage hackathons for research and development of new product features at our Meetup tomorrow.

Sign up Here! https://t.co/H7RZRBbmQS #a11y #VR #Hackathon pic.twitter.com/pC4DLIklMh
— A11yVR (@A11yVR) July 15, 2020
There’s still time to register for tomorrow’s @a11yVR Meetup “From Hack to Product Feature,” with my friend @rolanddubois https://t.co/buDJpIUIzM #a11y #VR #XR #XRHacks pic.twitter.com/drR7kt89od
— Thomas Logan / Techトーマス (@TechThomas) July 15, 2020
Promoting another great event set for tomorrow in the @A11yVR Meetup - featuring #XRAccess community member and #XR #InclusiveDesign leader @rolanddubois - Don't miss this! https://t.co/510EFZFdjL
— Bill Curtis-Davidson (@BCurtisDavidson) July 16, 2020
We are streaming @rolanddubois presentation from @MozillaHubs live https://t.co/ZKwoopAMS8 pic.twitter.com/BvQlgJBc14
— Thomas Logan / Techトーマス (@TechThomas) July 16, 2020
WEBCAST TODAY: From Hack to Product Feature – how to leverage R&D at work through hackathons – Roland Dubois @A11yVR @AllySIG @rolanddubois #WebXR #XRAccess #XR #a11y https://t.co/FaHYBEdhLG
— ISOC Live (@ISOC_Live) July 16, 2020
WEBCAST TODAY: From Hack to Product Feature – how to leverage R&D at work through hackathons – Roland Dubois @A11yVR @AllySIG @rolanddubois #WebXR #XRAccess #XR #a11y https://t.co/QM69HliYPU
— Joly MacFie (@JolyMacfie) July 16, 2020