Mollo is a text & chat app that aims to bring squads of gamers together by combining excellent experiences for chat, voice, and communities. This case study refers to designing to redesign the app's voice controls to bring meaningful interactions and maximize usability.

On diversified teams across the globe crystal-clear instructions and transparent communication is essential. I was located in Greece, the Product was in Gothenburg, Sweden, and Project Management was in Cyprus with the dev team.

Mollo’s Product Team had already conducted preliminary user research, and we started by sharing these findings with the UX for discussion and triangular validation.

Following research findings, we aligned with wireframes that accommodated interaction guidelines; Design was respected but expanded on the --already established-- Design System. We created high-detailed prototypes and shared them with some users to fine-tune and benchmark them prior to pushing the solution to release.

A large sum of user research happened from the product team. This provided a base knowledge on how gamers — which is the target audience use this software. As a gamer, I validated the initial research assumptions and conclusions with people from the community.

Evaluating the existing interface of the app directed the voice controls to remain on the left side of the interface. That would allow the users to keep the content active and still chat among multiple channels. Discord, flock, and overtone follow the same pattern, not by chance.

We know early on that micro - interactions were essential to a billiant experience. As a designer, I had to provide multiple commands in a small real estate and keep it meaningful and functional using proper visual metaphors (iconograhy).

We evolved the UX/interaction of successful patterns we had already come across in other video chat solutions. Some of them are fast access to controls, creating mini control-player, sharing screen options for gamers, and others.

The most important part was having a floating mini-window when users minimized the app's screen. We found this so common demand, and still, most apps fail to capture that.

When users associate, the focus is on whatever the users want to focus on -- either a game, app or video, etc. --, and the chatting app should get out of the way!

We expanded the use cases to other areas as well; for example, hosting D&D sessions and allowing users to broadcast special music to the rest of the team was one of them, and options to identify new hardware and seemless switch.

The UI follows a futuristic approach. We did this intentionally to add modern and gaming flavor. Respecting the brand's guidelines, I made the interface stand out as much as it should. The team gave special care to accessibility enhancements. Controls with focus states, proper contrast ratios, and enough room for user interaction.

Users commented exceptionally positively on the design, control, and overall solution. Currently, voice control is on MVP, with the rest features coming in feature releases. Already with the team, we design exciting new features that will expand Mollo's user base and bring more excellent value to the gaming communities.