June 2021
July 2022
Team
Lavi Ajmani (Lead, Designer) — Emily Stott (Product Manager) — Michael Wilson (Backend Engineer) — Wagner Truppel (Frontend Engineer)
Development Period
February 2022 - July 2022
COVID 19 forced designers to rethink the boundaries of video conferencing.
Leading the surge on video conferencing innovation was Hopin, a London-based unicorn founded in 2019. Part of Hopin’s strategic acquisitions was Session (previously Jamm). Session would be torn down and rebuilt by a team of 3, led by Buck Wilson (Discord), Graeme Metcalf (SeatGeek), and I. After a successful launch, we identified an opportunity to create a companion iOS app. I have a significant background in iOS design and research. Thus, I was appointed as lead for development and launch of the Session mobile app. This case study will lightly summarize the development process of Session iOS.
With a launch date of November 2021, we had 8 months to develop, test, and launch Session iOS.
To achieve this, the Session organization put forth their best. Emily [Stott], Session’s product manager, and I hit the ground running, blocking the development phases. The design process was split into 4 parts in response to constraints: lo-fidelity, MVP, hi-fidelity, and launch-ready.
With less time, we placed greater emphasis on due-diligence and quality.
Often, a lack of time is perceived as the route guaranteed to cut corners. With personal experience in product development that did this, I was aware that we would pay the price at some point, should we choose that route. We resolved to prioritize diligent and mindful executions of our sprints. This required increased presence from each individual on our team, but created greater chance for a product launch that could meet all the OKRs we initially set out.