Playground Global
Seamlessly interact, oversee, and manage robot fleets all within one platform.
The Background
Playground Global is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in deep tech and assists startups with software, hardware, machine learning, marketing, talent, and design. I worked within the internal software team, which assisted various portfolio companies with diverse needs. As a UX design intern, I worked closely with a portfolio company to explore the warehouse automation space from a UX perspective.
The Problem
Robot behavior can be perceived as unpredictable and hard to understand to warehouse managers.
The Goal
Make UX changes to address current pain points while working on new design ideas for the prototype UI.
Working at Playground meant being surrounded by real robots — from home bots like Kuri roaming the office, to team sessions brainstorming warehouse automation from first principles.
Providing transparency and control to oversee robots like every other production in a warehouse
Challenge
Unpredictable by nature
Robots don't follow fixed paths. Routing adapts dynamically, making it hard to visualize intent for floor operators.
Opportunity
Design for awareness
Surface just enough state changes, route indicators, and key stats without overwhelming a busy map view.
Solution
Control without clutter
Operators should feel in command without being bombarded when overseeing robots across a live warehouse floor.
A goal of the platform was to make it clear to users what behaviors the robots within the fleet are doing and if they need assistance. To help demonstrate this, I worked on designs to show robot state behavior.
Early brainstorm
I walked through all the current robot states and began to brainstorm ideas for how to display key information. Things related to color, connection state, charge, and what info is valuable to represent.
v1 to v2 — State map
I quickly learned there was a sweet spot. I wanted it to be apparent to a user that there was some change to the robot, but adding too much information made it distracting when hidden in a larger map. After feedback, I shifted to less color emphasis and more minimalistic changes.
The insight
Information hierarchy — robot card notes
Another way we wanted to show transparency was by providing users with a route visualization of the path robots were taking from destination A to B. However the way our robots are configured, they don't have a particular path from destination A to B, so we had to get creative.
The constraint that forced creativity
The initial design displayed an intuitive and transparent path, but it didn't allow leeway for changing robot behavior. So I iterated on different ideas trying to convey to users that the path was not completely set in stone.
4 route visualization explorations
Explored: The Flashlight, Blur View, Blue Out the Area, and Dashed and Connected Line with Waypoints. We ended up going with a variation of the fourth design. The small changes to how the information was displayed made it plausible for engineering to deploy while still fitting product needs.
Giving operators a path preview
The dashed line was paired with a Preview Path modal before task submission. This gave operators a chance to review the planned route, add obstacles, or adjust waypoints before committing.
The robot detail bar was the main product feature I got to work on from scratch to final designs. The goal: easily be able to view all the key data about each robot in one place.
Fleet at a Glance
Instantly see which robots are online, offline, or flagged without clicking into each one individually.
Task View by Progress
Changed the task view from a long list sorted only by state to now be sorted by task progress as well.
Collapsible Panel
A bar that could be opened and closed based on if you needed to see the information within it.
What counts as key data?
I started by gathering what would and wouldn't be considered key information to display on this bottom bar — separating must-have vitals from nice-to-haves that would just add noise.
Lo-fi explorations
After gathering information I started creating ideas for bar open vs. collapsed views. After presenting to the UX team for critique I omitted the image on the card view and created the high fidelities.
Final Solutions
Robots can be unpredictable. The robot bar allows users to quickly view which robots within the fleet are offline, online and any other vital stats. It also shows the updated task view now sorted by status. Allowing users to quickly navigate without getting lost in the never ending list of to dos.
By selecting a robot on the map users can quickly view what task the robot is doing, if it's having any issues, and a predicted route visualization.
It's better to do some things imperfectly. Interning at Playground Global, I gained valuable experience and was continuously challenged. I learned that not everything needs to be done perfectly, especially when working with early-stage startups. If anything it's better not to be perfect and instead maximize your efficiency by utilizing your resources.
My passion for UX is never-ending. Working at Playground Global was my first time immersing myself in HRI and user testing with 3D products. I learned that due to the infinite opportunities available, my passion for UX only grew stronger.
Gratitude for the experience. Overall, I am incredibly thankful for my experience interning at Playground Global and can't wait for my next adventure in UX.
Winning People's Choice at the Robust AI Hackathon 2021, one of many unexpected moments that came with the Playground experience.
