About
Knowledge Initiatives
Our goal is to harness technology to represent knowledge in an intuitive and adaptable way.
After the dust has settled and the NDA’s have expired, it is hard to revisit a project that you knew had so much potential to succeed but ultimately did not.
Kiworks was an attempt to challenge how we organize and approach data relationships.
“Beginnings are always messy.”
Challenge
How to design a tool that could potentially be useful to everyone?
I joined the team a year into the development of the application and I was tasked with translating the existing version of their data-mapping tool to be something more accessible for a wider audience.
Research
In the beginning of the project, I was very limited in regards to how much user research I was allowed to pursue. The only solution I had was to use myself and other developers as testers for our own application.
While not without some risk and being a bit unorthodox, each of us began to use Kiworks to create our own passion projects and as a critical element of our development pipeline.
Thedas
For my own project, I decided to map out the world of one of my favorite video games. I wanted to see how tightly interwoven certain characters were and if I could discover connections that had not been made apparent within the games themselves.
Targaryen Family Tree
I wanted to see how creating a family tree would look like within Kiworks and settled on mapping out the Targaryen family. ...it got interesting.
Key Features Map
Since Kiworks had the ability to have shared projects, all devs collaborated within certain projects to map out feature status updates and next steps to keep everyone on the same page.
Ideation
We had big plans to extend Kiworks across multiple devices.
Plans to push the application to mobile devices and into virtual reality were mapped out for future releases. While I fell back on pen & paper and my everyday wireframing tools, for my VR concepts I decided to get more creative.
Branding
The application went through a lot of name changes before we finally settled on naming it Kiworks.
As the sole designer for the application, it fell upon my shoulders to sketch out and ideate on multiple logos throughout the development cycle.
Product
Towards the end of production, we had gotten user data login setup, project saves squared away and a robust, functioning data-mapping application that was ready to ship.
The design had certainly evolved from when I first stepped into my role as Product Designer, but I was very proud of what we had accomplished and future changes we had planned.
Summary
Kiworks had so much potential behind it and I am still heartbroken that it failed to launch.
From shopping lists to mapping and discovering new connections to your musical tastes that you could share with friends and family, the possibilities for what could be built with our application were astounding.
From a design perspective, I learned that the struggle to push for a smooth production pipeline is always worth it and that, no matter how much you bring data to back your case up, some stakeholders will never budge.
Key lessons I am happy to have learned through my experiences at Knowledge Initiatives.