A virtual networking app that recreates the spontaneous, serendipitous collisions of in-person professional life — designed solo in 48 hours.
Timeline
48 Hours
Team
- Designer - Solo Project
Tools
Figma · Agora Design Guidelines
Constraint
Design for Agora's video, voice, streaming, and messaging platform
overview
How do we recreate the spontaneous, unplanned moments of in-person networking in a fully virtual environment?
There’s a specific kind of magic that happens when you round a corner at a conference and bump into someone you’ve been meaning to meet. Or when you overhear a conversation in the office kitchen and find yourself pulled into it. These spontaneous moments are where real professional relationships are built — and remote work has almost completely eliminated them.
bump started from something personal: watching my older brother, a recent grad entering a fully remote role struggle to build any sense of professional belonging. He could join meetings, send Slack messages, and do great work. But he couldn’t meet anyone.
The UW Protothon 2023 prompt asked teams to design an enterprise real-time engagement app using Agora’s platform. I saw it immediately: this was a chance to solve the spontaneous connection problem. I had 48 hours. I worked alone. And I won first place in the Enterprise Track.
This case study walks through every decision I made - the research that grounded them, the design tradeoffs I navigated, and the constraints I worked within.
research
With limited time, I made a deliberate choice: rather than guessing at user pain points, I interviewed two new grad employees — the exact profile of users most affected by remote networking challenges. These are the people for whom building a professional network isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s critical for their career trajectory.
Primary interviews
I designed my questions to uncover the emotional reality of remote networking, not just the practical friction:
- How would you describe your experience transitioning into a remote work environment?
- What are your typical challenges when trying to connect with other employees virtually?
- How do you currently stay connected with colleagues and build professional relationships remotely?
Target Customer & Their Goals
The company-level goals that bump needed to serve:
Team Collaboration
Enable distributed teams to collaborate, brainstorm, and build cohesion through seamless, interactive meetings.
Virtual Social Hub
Create a persistent virtual social hub where employees can connect across teams — not just in scheduled meetings, but in the casual moments between them.
design
Design process
Lo-fi sketches explored anonymous versus public room metaphors; wireframe variants converged on a browsable room list with live presence. Hi-fi screens aligned with Agora’s real-time video patterns.
Ideation
After understanding the problem and my users, I started to sketch out my ideas of possible concepts that would achieve my design goals. Even the wildest ones. Throughout my brainstorming process, I made an effort to envision what it feels like to network and “bump” into people in real life.
results
The concept placed first in the Enterprise Track - validating that lightweight social presence can pair with professional boundaries in remote settings.
the outcome
1st Place - Enterprise Track, UW Protothon 2023
Want to hear more about this project or how I work? I'm happy to chat - reach out at oliviakttran@gmail.com.