In January 2023, we hosted a Collaboration Kit challenge for the Vaadin community. The goal was to use the Collaboration Kit to design or build a web application with real-time user collaboration. In this blog post series, we take a closer look at the winning applications!
Meet Matija Vojvodic – the runner-up in the Design category of the Collaboration Kit challenge! Matija, originally from Zagreb, Croatia, is a Product Designer with a software development and graphic design background. He currently works for Berlin-based startup Sweap, which is dedicated to creating innovative solutions in the event industry.
See all of the Collaboration Kit challenge winners.
Please talk us through the collaborative app you designed for the challenge.
To begin with, I identified the problem I wanted to solve while keeping in mind the collaborative nature of the app. I created a few user stories, listed user needs and wants, and identified the target audience: startups or smaller teams within a bigger enterprise.
After defining the problem, I sketched, brainstormed, analyzed the competition, and explored various potential solutions, iterating on ideas. From there, I transitioned to building the app using the Vaadin Design System and Vaadin Collaboration Kit.
I created prototypes and gathered feedback from my team at Sweap and a few friends, then continued iterating on the design to ensure it met the target audience's needs. Check out Laika on Figma!
How was your experience using the Vaadin Collaboration Kit?
My experience was extremely positive. The feature is well-built into the Vaadin Design System, and the ideas behind the Collaboration Kit are well-defined, making it easy to use. Most of the work was more about being creative in determining where to implement the Collaboration Kit and identifying the use cases it could address. Overall, it's an excellent tool that helped me build a collaborative app that easily and quickly met the target audience's needs.
If you could do the challenge again, what would you change in your application?
I don't think I would change much. Still, I would probably add documentation of my entire design process (research, sketching, etc.) to the application and maybe make Laika a working, clickable prototype.
Do you plan on implementing other Collaboration Kit use cases or features in the future?
I want to expand the functionality of my MVP by enabling a single user to be part of multiple teams and making Laika more easily integrable with large-scale enterprise organizations. I also want to facilitate cross-team communication with the use of the Collaboration Kit and find ways to link organizational goals to the relevant projects and tasks.
How do you see the future of collaborative apps evolving?
As remote work continues to increase in popularity, the demand for real-time collaboration tools will grow. Vaadin has been forward-thinking in this regard by incorporating Collaboration Kit, enabling teams that use Vaadin to adapt to this trend easily.
In my opinion, another trend that will become increasingly prevalent is the use of AI in collaborative apps. In the future, AI could be seen as just another team member that will offer suggestions in the decision-making process, optimize workflows and automate repetitive tasks, making collaboration more efficient. So the goal of collaborative apps will be to enable collaboration between individuals and teams and between those same groups with AI.
I integrated a similar idea into the Laika chatbot that would, in MVP, provide information on tasks and projects and enhance the overall performance and productivity of the team. In the future, the same chatbot could grow into AI that could interact with the team members, giving them insights into ongoing projects and tasks and providing predictive analytics that could be used for more accurate project planning.
Connect with Matija on LinkedIn.
Matija, thank you for participating in the challenge, and a big congratulations on your placement!
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Build real-time collaboration features into your business web applications with just a few lines of code. Learn more about the Vaadin Collaboration Kit or see the documentation.