Epiphan Cloud
Remotely control and monitor hardware devices from Epiphan Video
Epiphan Cloud enables users of Epiphan's hardware to remotely control their devices for easy creation, configuration, and video content streaming.
Company and Date
Epiphan Video | May-Sept 2020
Epiphan Video | May-Sept 2020
My Role
Product Design | UX Research | Design Lead | Marketing Images
Product Design | UX Research | Design Lead | Marketing Images
Epiphan Video’s clients frequently use multiple devices, with some universities operating up to 50 in different rooms. Without a centralized system, IT managers had to manually configure each device, leading to frustration and reliance on hacks or third-party solutions.
This challenge led to the development of Epiphan Cloud, a web application that enables remote control and configuration of Epiphan devices.
As a product designer, I researched and designed the initial release and planned future upgrades and features. I introduced a new design approach for the company and worked closely with iterative feedback to refine the product.
Epiphan Cloud is subscription-based — a new model for the company. It's also an important tool to cross-sell more of Epiphan's hardware devices, as buying plenty of hardware becomes more enticing if you have a central place to remotely manage them (e.g. clients like Universities would have 100+ devices).
The platform is also set to scale and evolve into a comprehensive hub for all Epiphan products.
User goals:
• Monitor and configure physical Epiphan devices from anywhere.
Business goals:
• Create a new digital product that improves the offering of the hardware products and allows a steady stream of revenue.
• Improve brand recognition for easy-to-use, user-friendly products.
• Create a platform that can be scaled.
Results:
• Epiphan Cloud works on a subscription model that generates recurring revenue. A new business model for the company.
• Operations now can be done remotely in a quarter of the time or less. It became an essential product for Universities.
• Ready to be scaled as a platform and be used to host all future digital products from Epiphan.
• Improvements in the design process and culture: Product research became more common, as well as working in small increments to be validated at a time.
The Approach
How might we allow Epiphan customers to control their devices remotely to create and manage live event video productions?
People were tired of fidgeting with finicky solutions and needed a place to see and control all their devices.
The need arose after evaluating feedback from users and satisfaction forms.
The main users and goals
1. Audio/video technicians and managers from universities and live events companies.
Goal: Manage a fleet of devices, ensure everything is running smoothly, and record and stream the event to the selected location (Youtube, Facebook, Kaltura, etc.).
Goal: Manage a fleet of devices, ensure everything is running smoothly, and record and stream the event to the selected location (Youtube, Facebook, Kaltura, etc.).
2. Buyers (Directors of Information Technology):
Goal: Purchase the best audio/video solution based on a list of requirements.
Goal: Purchase the best audio/video solution based on a list of requirements.
We had provisional user journeys collaboratively done in Miro to understand the buying process and the first Epiphan device set-up experience. Helpful in some stages of the Epiphan Cloud development.
Dashboard design, constraints and a quick launch.
The idea of having a dashboard was already established, so ideation was more focused on the features and constraints. Constraints were defined, and we ended up with requirements in spreadsheets.
The company also wanted to release this quickly, which meant we needed to use an outdated design system as a starting point — with space for some updates.
Users can access each device individually to get specific stats and do operations.
Progressive disclosure and customizable status fields
Most of the professionals who use our products are highly skilled and want to check and customize all possible details and gear statuses. To not overwhelm them, we display the most necessary info on the surface and leave the rest to secondary pages.
Most of the interface work was figuring out the different flows and relationships between operations.
Even hovers and active states demanded some extra considerations.
Whimsical elements were also incorporated for delight.
Any operation in Cloud meant a change in the Pearl-2 touchscreen interface and Pearl-2 admin interface.
Alert System: Focus on the event production and not on the hardware
Managing audio/video systems is stressful work due to the number of different devices and software people have to work with (e.g. microphones, video cameras, sound boards, automation systems, encoders, etc.). This brings a lot of possible points of failure. With an alert system, people can work on other tasks of their workflow, knowing that they will be warned if something goes wrong with Epiphan devices, reducing anxiety and increasing confidence in the tool.
“Epiphan Cloud puts our eyes and ears on-site. It allows us to control the outcome of the event.” Jim Fiore, President at Corporate Events Online.
View case study →
View case study →
Batch operations, filters and groups
Thinking about users that have 3+ devices in their lineup and need to do the same operation across all, we implemented the batch operations feature.
This feature was designed to be scaled, as more operations are required in the future.
Universities with 40+ Epiphan devices are pleased to be able to catalogue, search and find what they need
Each classroom or department can be a group and managers can focus on only what they need to see. This becomes an even more powerful tool when you do a batch operation in the whole group. Users now need a few minutes to do operations that took half or full days before.
Launch and Results
The first version was launched three months after I joined.
After, we kept iterating in small updates.
After, we kept iterating in small updates.
In-person operations that took hours now can be done remotely in a quarter of the time or less.
Plenty of praise from users, IT managers and video managers from large companies and universities.
Plenty of praise from users, IT managers and video managers from large companies and universities.
A first step into an end-to-end platform.
Epiphan Cloud was launched at the right time: during the lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Epiphan users easily transitioned to a remote setup and Cloud is ready to be scaled as a platform to host all future digital products from Epiphan.
Epiphan Cloud was launched at the right time: during the lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Epiphan users easily transitioned to a remote setup and Cloud is ready to be scaled as a platform to host all future digital products from Epiphan.
Buying plenty of hardware becomes more enticing if you have a central place to remotely manage them. The Batch actions proved to be an essential feature — sometimes the only feature that made users subscribe to the service.
Improvements in the design process and culture.
This was my first project at Epiphan and I introduced many new processes and ideas. Product research became more common, as well as working in small increments to grab constant validation from the team, amongst others.
This was my first project at Epiphan and I introduced many new processes and ideas. Product research became more common, as well as working in small increments to grab constant validation from the team, amongst others.
Case study:
Video production company ramps up operations with cloud-enabled efficiency
Jeremy Prudhomme, Founder of JEEMAN Productions.
Next steps
There is still a lot to be done to ease users’ pains and frustrations. Perhaps the most important addition will be:
Events-based approach matching users' mental models:
Live production professionals have different setups that are repeated for different events.
Our assumption is that professionals would benefit from an events-based flow. In this future state, devices can be grouped, configured and scheduled in advance based on the specific type of event (e.g. live concerts, townhalls, round tables). This means that a producer can set up event templates by mixing different devices and reusing them over and over.
I created a dashboard concept on Dribbble that shows a little of how this could look like.
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Credits:
Admin: Misha Jiline, Mike Sandler.
Product Management: Yusupha Touray, George Birchall.
UX Design: Marcos Duda.
Engineering: Vadim Kalinskiy, Vladimir Rodkin, Roman Davydov, Adam Frame.
Marketing, branding: George Birchall, Jay Bonilla, Dan Wallace, Marta Chernova, Victor Doubrovine.
Customer Success: George Herbert, Mathieu Renaud, Zack Bell, Adam Palmer, Ryan Haynes.
QA: Issam Kndakji, Loulia Massarani.
+ The whole team at Epiphan Video
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