Epiphan Connect
Send audio and video feeds from Teams and Zoom to your preferred live event software
50% faster and cheaper for Video Producers to stream live events using participants from Microsoft Teams and Zoom meetings.
Company and Date 
Epiphan Video  |  Jun 2022 — Dec 2022
My Role
Product Design | Workshop Facilitation | UX Research | Design Lead
Professional live streaming became very challenging during the COVID-19 lockdowns, as presenters and video producers couldn't physically share a dedicated studio space.
To still deliver video streaming content, video producers started using tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams to host and stream live events. Since these tools were not originally made for professional live streaming, they lacked plenty of customization capabilities.
To achieve better video output, producers resorted to expensive and risky technical workarounds that added new stress to live events. This challenge presented an opportunity to develop Epiphan Connect — a digital tool that seamlessly connects remote meetings to professional streaming software with just a few clicks, eliminating the need for risky hacks.
As the product designer, I shaped the product through user research, prototype testing, and contractor oversight. The result was a user-friendly tool that not only increased productivity and reduced operational risks and costs, but also enabled video producers to explore new business models.
Business goals:
• Market Expansion: One of Epiphan's first all-digital products, tapping into a new area of video production for the company and aiming for a new market.
• Scalability: It's also part of creating an all-encompassing tool that will combine all of Epiphan's solutions into a single cloud platform.

User goals:
• Confidently and easily send live video feeds from MS Teams or Zoom to a live video streaming software of choice.
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The result:
Compared to the previous process:
• 50% faster to export live feeds from MS Teams calls.
• 90% cheaper to export live feeds.
• Surveyed users find Epiphan Connect easy to use and highly valuable, even changing their workflow to adapt to it.
• Catalyst to close partnerships with Microsoft and Zoom, launching Epiphan into new markets.
The Approach
How might we help video producers fetch audio and video from Zoom and Microsoft Teams to produce professional live shows?
Understanding the users, the product, the hacks, and the possibilities.
We already had some research indicating that this was a problem worth solving with no competitors sharing this market. So, one of my first tasks was to dive deep into users, their challenges, journeys and more importantly, how were they hacking this process.

Two of three main Personas, separated by technical expertise.

The hack: a single computer per meeting participant
One of the most common ways video producers were hacking this problem was to have a single computer per meeting participant.
Each computer would pin a remote participant’s video, record its screen, and send the audio/video signals to the production computer. The producer would then combine these signals, add graphics, and live stream the meeting.
Different stakeholders had different ideas and goals for the product. To save time and align the team, I led a workshop session.
The workshop defined the basics of the product, features, and constraints. We agreed it wouldn't be a full video production app and we should start with a technical implementation that was already in the works.

We moved quickly by using Miro's boards as the source of truth for the initial stages of this project

Remote workshop in Miro to gather insights on product characteristics

Epiphan Connect will replace one of the steps of the video producers' workflow

Prototypes and concept tests.
With the help of another designer, we quickly created a prototype to start testing with potential users. I conducted the research, delivered feedback and critique while another designer worked on the visual design. The team also did technical demos for potential users.
This testing allowed us to collect information not only on users' feedback on the new product, but also about their current workflows, current challenges, and hacks.

Figma prototype showing the flow of connection to a meeting and setting up your video feeds


The research showed that Epiphan Connect is useful and easy. However, live stream producers are not tied to any tools and they will switch tools for different projects.
• Live stream producers will switch tools depending on the event and what's required.
• Producers will not choose Epiphan Connect if the meeting presenters' experience is not good.
• First-time users would have a difficult experience with the current implementation.

We tested Epiphan Connect's prototype with users that matched our Video Producer persona.

We had to cover a lot of different system states.

The complexity of the visual design came from the numerous states, errors, and technical details I needed to grasp.
I worked closely with the QA and engineering teams to craft precise UI text for error states, progress bars, and tooltips, ensuring I understood all the cross-platforms implications.

Example of what a typical page in Figma looked like. Most of the UI development was modals, states, and reactions to user inputs.

Understanding the flow of events of the interface and the back-end.
This project involved three different apps (Epiphan Connect + Microsoft Teams/Zoom + Video Production Software), so we had to make sure we understood their relationships and limitations.

On the left: Epiphan Connect running a "test" meeting. On the right, the same "test" meeting seen from Microsoft Teams (with only one participant, me).

Different states would be shown, such as 1) connecting live preview 2) preparing live preview 3) no live preview.

Marketing materials.
The marketing team also created marketing materials pre-launch.
We launched it six months after I joined the project.
We had a lot of interest in our launch event: 2600 people signed up.
This was a record for Epiphan and it showed how important Epiphan Connect is, as webinars have an average of 200 participants.
   
Results.
• The tool successfully replaced hacks for virtual events hosted with Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
• 50% faster live feeds export times from MS Teams calls.
• 90% cheaper to export live feeds compared to the previous hacks.
• Surveyed users found the application highly valuable. People who used to travel for work could change their whole work setup as this tool allows them to work remotely.
• The tool connects with other Epiphan tools, perfect for the scalability of Epiphan's Platform.
• Epiphan developed close partnerships and got plenty of media exposition from Microsoft and Zoom.
Next steps.
There's a list of features and tests we still need to execute and prioritize to fully reach our business goals, such as:
• Understand what we need to do to make Connect trustworthy for high-risk events. Keep understanding user needs and exploring the B2C space.
• Work on an end-to-end solution by merging Epiphan Connect with other digital and physical applications from Epiphan to provide users with a single major tool for remote video production and streaming.
• Researching, reviewing and understanding the revenue and usage data. How does it affect the business model and do we need any changes?
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Epiphan Connect website

Credits:
Admin: Misha Jiline, Mike Sandler, Nic Milani.
Product Management: Yusupha Touray.
UX Design: Marcos Duda, Alexander Tanaev, Maria Sankina.
Engineering: Vadim Kalinskiy, Damián Cherubini, Angel Verdu, Ivan Matskan, Roman Davydov, Adam Frame, Oleg Nogin.
Marketing, animations and branding: George Birchall, Dan Wallace, Marta Chernova, Jay Bonilla, Julian Fernandez, Victor Doubrovine.
Customer Success: George Herbert, Mathieu Renaud, Zack Bell, Adam Palmer, Ryan Haynes.
QA: Issam Kndakji, Loulia Massarani, Grygoriy Bezshaposhnikov.
+ The whole team at Epiphan Video
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