I am Himani, a product designer from Raleigh.
I started my professional career as a graphic designer, after completing my Bachelor’s degree in Advertising and Marketing, and shortly after getting a certification in Print Media, Visual Effects & Motion Graphics I entered the world of broadcast.
During my career, I have worked for leading broadcasters around the world as a real-time broadcast designer. I started working as a Designer for a broadcasting graphics company called Wasp3d, then went on to become a Product Specialist. As a product specialist, working on several projects that had me work directly with clients, understanding their needs, and coming up with solutions in form of product features, I discovered my passion for product designing.
Project 01
Drone Designer
Incorporated New Features into Existing Product
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Drone Designer, a cutting-edge real-time 3D graphics creation application, represents the pinnacle of Wasp3d's innovative workflow. Tailored to support a diverse array of production needs, from news graphics to live motion graphics, virtual sets, augmented reality, and intricate 3D animations, Drone Designer is a pivotal tool in the arsenal of broadcasters worldwide.
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With a client base spanning over 400 broadcasters, including esteemed networks such as Televisa, Astro Awani, Zee Business, WION, and many more, Wasp3d has solidified its position as a leader in the industry."
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MY ROLE
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Owns decisions from a visual design and user experience perspective, in collaboration with Product Management and Engineering.
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Ran projects from inception to delivery, coordinating with internal design team & engineering teams, estimating scope, creating design documentation, coordinating with release managers, and launch materials with the marketing team.
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Conducted user interviews with clients across the globe to understand their pain points & convert those insights into product features.
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Conducted onsite product demos & product training for various teams in broadcast tv stations, which helped me gain an understanding of issues users facing with current products they are using.
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Represented Wasp3d in international trade shows- CABSAT-Dubai, Broadcast Asia- Singapore, NAB-USA, IBC-Netherlands for consecutive 4 years.
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Created training content explaining different features of the product. Feature Tutorials
ROLE & DURATION
Product Designer
Product Thinking, Research: User & Market,
Information Architecture, Interaction , Visual Design, Prototyping & Testing
Team: Product Manager, 15 +Developers & Testing Team.
(Dec 2014 - Oct 2018)
MY DESIGN PROCESS
TARGET USERS
The target users of the application are graphic artists and coders predominantly operating within television broadcasting stations.
CHALLENGES
The primary challenge lies in maintaining the integrity of a single design application capable of creating a wide array of broadcasting graphics, ranging from Standard News graphics to Touch Screen, Virtual Set, Augmented Reality, Business, and more. Each new feature introduced must be meticulously designed to enhance user productivity while minimizing the complexity associated with its implementation. This delicate balance ensures that the application remains quick to learn and easy to use, thus meeting the evolving needs of graphic artists and coders operating within television broadcasting stations.
“A product is never done, but only evolves.”
 — Nick Babich
OVERVIEW
Few new features, I worked on in collaboration with development teams were:
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Objects: Tile, Table Text, Rich Text Format, Pie Object, Particles (Data Table feature) & Candle Graph
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Data Add-ins: User-Defined Tables and Multipin
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Control Actions- Set Element, Script action, Change Key Frame, Match Variable, Set & Check Variable
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Textures: Remap & Blur
FEATURE DESCRIPTION
Tile Object
It's an object for displaying other objects in a tabular manner, which removes the hassle of creating and arranging several 3D or 2D objects to achieve the same result, while also lowering the render time of the Scene, as the number of objects is reduced.
Table Text
Is an extension of Tile object, used for creating a grid of text objects.
It can be easily populated using data sources such as excel files and SQL databases using a simple drag and drop over the table text itself. Users can control the text attributes such as fonts, font weights, color, etc. for each column/row individually.
Dynamic Data Display: Elevating Broadcast Visuals with Tile and Table Text Integration
Rich Text Format
Data entry operators couldn't change font properties in design, which created their reliance on designers every time they need any changes.
To eliminate the dependency, we introduced the Rich Text Format at the data entry level.
Operators could now select multiple fonts and Font Styles like Bold, Italics in one single 3D text object and even color individual words or characters independent of the actual material.
Empowering Data Operators: Font Control with Rich Text Format Integration
Pie Object
A pie object to create pie graphs with ease. The ready-made pie object can be used with user-defined or table-based data. It supports various animation styles.
CONTROL ACTIONS
Control Actions at Design Level to eliminate need for developers
Control keys act like instruction sets and can be placed at any frame on an animation timeline, action sets, a gesture of object. These keys enable graphic artists to customize scene playback, trigger video or audio, check for data changes or updates, scene cue, and much more in a script-free fashion.
The aim was to give the designers the freedom to do the task independently, without the need for coders thus help companies to save the cost of hiring developers. Though application provides a programming platform too.
Control Panel
Set Element
It enables users to set the material for FBX, 3DS files, and fill color for AI and SHP files according to a specified range in real-time.
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Party Seat share is an important graphic to show the election result during elections, and this sort of graphics needs programming. But after the "Set Element" control action, this can be done without coding.
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Empowering Designers: Independent Task Execution
Match Variable
It acts like a switch case command. The defined expression is compared with the value of each case, if there is a match, the associated sets of actions are executed else the default action is executed.
Record Move Control Action
After linking table text with the data set, we realize users cant move to the next page without code. To eliminate reliance on the development team we introduced a "record move" action. It checks data availability and applies success or failure action accordingly.
ADDINS
Data Add-Ins integrate data sources into the Wasp graphics (e.g. Excel, XML, RSS Feeds, SQL, PostgreSQL*, Wire Feeds, Stock Feeds to name a few).
User Defined Tables
UDT is a relational table management system designed for Artists to link Scene elements to a simple database. It provides users, access to a collection of tables that can be customized to create hierarchical, Category - based data entry and data storage interfaces.
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The introduction of the UDT eliminated the dependency on external spreadsheet application like Microsoft Excel or Microsoft SQL to some extent, especially for small DB driven projects. UDT became part of all wasp3d modules - Creation & Data Entry- Drone Designer, Data Entry- Data Buzz & Sting Client.
1.1 Expression Column
Expression columns is a widely used feature in broadcast, especially during elections or match graphics. It helps in reducing time & scope of error.
1.2 Data Source
Data Source column enables "Auto-Fill" feature to fill cells with data that follows a pattern or is based on data in other cells. It saves a lot of time, as it fills corresponding value in linked columns. For example: on selecting a team, it will fill, its logo image, color, or other relevant information
1.3 Convert Xml and Excel to UDT
Existing data files, can also be converted to UDT.
1.4 Image Column
Image column allows data entry operators to see the image before triggering graphic on-air, which was not possible with other data source which just provides image path.
1.5 UDT Addin
Addin allows users to fetch data from the data table depending upon template needs. Drag & drop to a link data table with any object param or variable in the template.
1.6 UDT at Data Entry Level
2. Multi Pin Addin
Provides the option to create custom columns with various objects properties like .ai, .shp, line graph, .fbx file etc.. It also gives the user to create mathematical expression Columns.
Graphic template using Multipin Addin
Learnings/Takeaways
In this project, I learned that just focusing on one feature isn't enough. We need to look at the whole product to make it work well. By thinking about how each feature fits into the big picture, we can make sure everything works together smoothly and makes sense to users. Also, it's important to see how features connect. When features work together nicely, it's easier for users to use the product and they're happier with it.
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In the future, I'll remember these lessons and use them to make better designs that are easier for users to understand and enjoy
More Projects
FinWiz Client
Nectar Client
Store Module
