The RW1 desktop app is a platform that enables employees to access their company’s virtual reality training programs.

Each training is a custom-made experience tailored to the specific needs of the company that commissioned its development from RW1.

The platform serves as the entry point for all virtual reality training experiences developed by RW1.

Role: Product Designer

Team: I was the sole designer on this project. I created a plan outlining the next steps and presented it to our design lead, who connected me with the right people within the company so I could conduct user discovery interviews.

Platform: Desktop App

Timeline: 1 year for the whole redesign, discovery phase timeline not specified

RW1 had never had a designer on the team before, so there was no established foundation or in-depth understanding of who the app’s users were, what roles they held within their companies, or how familiar they were with virtual reality.
All client communication was handled by RW1 account managers, who also stepped into the role of UX designers when needed.

Client companies strongly pushed for improvements to the desktop app to make it easier for their employees to use and to reduce the amount of guidance required during training.

1. Mapping the current state of the desktop app
2. Create personas
3. Create user journeys
4. The future vision
5. Product alignment

The initial step was to take screenshots of the entire app and understand the functionality of each section.

To understand who our users are, I conducted interviews with all account managers inside RW1. After having a good understanding of what we know inside our company, I also connected with our customers and conducted interviews with them.

In addition to standard notes from each interview, I summarized key information in an Excel sheet. Based on these insights, I created user personas.

I identified 4 primary personas:
- Trainee
- Trainer
- Sales person
- Client of the sales person

And 4 secondary personas, all RW1 employees:
- VR Support
- Internal Employee
- Designer
- RW1 Admin

User journeys were created based on insights from interviews with account managers and our customers.

The user journey illustrates how the app fits into a single training cycle: the user books the course, receives the virtual reality headset, gets onboarded into the virtual reality technology, completes the training program, and then returns the headset.

After acquiring a solid understanding of the current state, I set up a meeting with the CEO and CTO, our founders, who shape the company’s vision. I identified the company’s 1–2 year plan as well as its 5-year plan.

Before starting wireframing, it was important to present learnings from the interviews to the team: product manager and tech leads of each team.

The process was as follows:
1. Present key user stories and show how they are currently addressed by users.
2. Brainstorm possible solutions.
3. Based on preferred solutions, create diagrams to ensure all situations are covered.
4. Update the user journey with the new approach to see how it fits into the big picture.

During this process, I also started including simple lo-fi wireframe sketches. This made it easier for non-designers to understand what the solutions could mean in practice.

This case study illustrates the design discovery phase. Afterwards, we dived into design iterations, and once the main sections were completed, I conducted user tests using a clickable Figma prototype. I started with internal users who were not involved in the redesign process but used the app daily. Afterwards, we connected with our customers.

A challenge we faced was that while it was easy to reach trainers in each company, conducting user tests with trainees was difficult since they were paid employees of our customers.