Ryan Coughlin
Your desk
DTX
Cambridge
Beacon
Whiskey (Lounge)
Greenwich
Aussie Central
Aussie West
Lord Howe
Interactive Indoor Maps for Modern Workplaces
Product Strategy
Vision
User research
Ux/UI Design
Design system
About Robin
Robin is a hybrid workplace platform that helps employees book desks and find meeting rooms, and workplace admins better understand office utilization.
Problem
As Robin's customer base grew, so did their needs. Larger customers had upwards of hundreds of desks and conference rooms per floor. Our existing mapless solution did not scale with these constraints.
Engagement and usability fell (“time to booking” doubled), leading us to uncover more about this problem. Simple tasks such as finding where a colleague sits and looking for an available meeting room became difficult.
Customer Research
Customers shared their floor plans during research allowing me to understand just how complex their floors are – these are packed with amenities, desks, conference rooms, open areas and more. Solving for this experience at scale was a challenge.
Employees printed office maps, left on their desks, used for wayfinding. Often ending up covered in coffee stains (true problem!).
Challenges
Every project comes with its unique set of challenges, and this was no different. We tackled a number of them, including:
Performance and Complexity: Handling more data with larger customers meant every UI detail impacted performance. We optimized details like desk shapes to strike a balance between aesthetic appeal and data load.
Information Overload: Presenting all map data at once could overwhelm users and slow down the app. Contextual zoom levels and filtering reduced noise and a caching system for improved performance.
Cross-Platform Consistency: Ensuring the map worked well on web, mobile, email, Slack, and large interactive kiosks required consistency across different platforms.
Visualize the workplace with interactive real-time maps
Everyone understands maps—they're our go-to for navigating unknown terrain.
Our goal? To create an interactive, real-time indoor map platform that guides employees effortlessly through the office maze and gives admins a holistic view of their workspace.
This project included the design and delivery of surrounding layout and map popover elements.
Primary use case
Wayfinding and Booking
The map provides visual context enabling users to identify where they sit and which meeting rooms are available nearby. Maps live alongside experiences to support booking and wayfinding.
DTX
Cambridge
Beacon
Mightly Plaza
Tab 1
Tab 2
Tab 3
Map layers bucket data to create contextual experience, adapting to user needs
I structured the map data into flexible layers, tailoring the experience to suit user needs. User testing revealed a preference for relevance overabundance; users appreciated targeted information over exhaustive details of the entire map. This led to three core tenets:
Clarity: Using layers to minimize clutter and focus on user-specific needs.
Information Balance: Layers carry vast data but deliver it without overwhelming the user.
Versatility: Layers can be toggled on or off, adapting the map to varied needs.
This approach ensures we deliver a relevant and user-friendly map experience.
All layers
Rooms
Desks
Point of Interests
One map, used everywhere
Maps contain lots of data – map layers organize data into visual buckets that can be turned on and off to support user needs.
Outcomes
The new maps are a valuable addition to the Robin platform. They have helped to improve the user experience and make Robin a more powerful tool for workplace management.
After this project the was as also used to enable workplace admins to build and manage their floor plans. Think lightweight CAD, meets Figma.
Conclusion
I am proud of the work I did on this project. It was one of the coolest projects I've worked on at Robin, and I learned a lot from it.
One of the biggest challenges I faced was balancing the user experience with the technical feasibility of the project. I had to constantly explore different options and work with engineering partners to find the best solution.
Successfully designing this map as a platform, allowed us to enable a self-serve experience that allows workplace admins to build and manage their floo plans using this map (lightweight CAD, meets Figma)
Thank you! Tackling a tough problem? Reach out. Let's solve it together.