Product Design at Appspace

I joined Appspace as Product Designer in November 2021 following the acquisition of Beezy, where I contributed to integrating two distinct workplace platforms: Beezy's social intranet layer for Microsoft SharePoint and Appspace's digital signage and space management solutions. The vision: a unified workplace experience platform, to help employees connect both physically and digitally.

Over four years, I've led features of different product lines as well as cross-platform integration, while navigating the complexities of organizational change and product unification. These are some selected projects I've been leading during my time at Appspace.

Content Approval System

Problem

Enterprise clients in regulated industries required content review capabilities before publication. The challenge was designing an approval workflow that met compliance needs without creating bottlenecks in the content creation process.

Approach

I conducted user interviews with internal communications professionals to understand existing approval workflows. This research revealed a disconnect between my initial assumptions about formal review processes and the reality of how organizations actually manage content approval.

Research Insights

Through user interviews and thematic analysis, I uncovered critical gaps between my initial design assumptions and actual user needs.

The research revealed two distinct approval patterns in enterprise environments:

• Rigid approval workflows require content to restart the entire review process after each revision. This creates bottlenecks and delays that stakeholders described as highly inefficient. It might still be necessary for high-stakes communications like layoffs or mergers, but those kind of communications are not generally authored on our product originally.

• Collaborative approval workflows allow reviewers to provide input while maintaining author autonomy over final publication decisions. This approach accommodates busy stakeholders and maintains content velocity. More like a "Can you check this?" type of soft approval flow.

An initial concept involved publishers (owners) of channels being the default reviewers. This would have meant that each channel the content is published would have had a separate review process.

Key findings:

• Reviewer scope limitations: My initial design restricted reviewers to channel publishers, but real-world scenarios require flexibility to include stakeholders outside the core publishing team (e.g., executives for sensitive announcements).

• Engagement patterns: Senior stakeholders often lack bandwidth for detailed in-app review processes, requiring lightweight feedback mechanisms rather than complex commenting systems.

• Content criticality varies: High-stakes communications (mergers, layoffs) require different approval rigor than routine updates, suggesting the need for flexible workflow configurations.

Solution

Based on research insights, I redesigned the approval system around flexibility and user behavior rather than rigid compliance structures:

Core design decisions:

Non-blocking feedback mechanism: Implemented a collaborative review model where stakeholder input doesn't halt the publication process, allowing authors to maintain content velocity while incorporating feedback.

Dynamic reviewer selection: Enabled authors to include any stakeholder in the review process, with intelligent suggestions based on channel ownership and content type.

Simplified feedback interface: Reduced cognitive load for busy reviewers by implementing streamlined text-based feedback rather than complex annotation systems.

Configurable approval levels: Designed the system to accommodate varying organizational needs, from lightweight reviews for routine content to more structured processes for high-impact communications.

This research-driven approach shifted the solution from a one-size-fits-all approval gate to an adaptive workflow that respects organizational hierarchies while maintaining operational efficiency.

Pathfinding System

Problem

The need and the value of a pathfindind/wayfinding sytem for customers was already clearly validated. Among Appspace customers, many had multiple entire buildings with external visitors, for which finding their way around the building was essential. I was tasked with designing the admin and end-user experience.

Approach

The main struggle in this project were technical limitations. This feature was all about communication with developers and managing downgrades as we went along, while still shipping a feature that provides value. My vision faced constant challenges and I had to review my design constantly in order to make sure everything made sense.

It seemed initially that we would be able to leverage computer vision to recognize hallways and walkable areas, saving the user some time. Unfortunately the developers came back from a spike not feeling very confident with that route, and instead I had redesign the feature based on a path-tracing system.

A first concept based on the idea of auto-detected, editable walkable areas

Path tracing involves the admin manually tracing a path through the building connecting all the resources, and when the end user (employee or visitor) searches for a resource, the A* algorithm will find the shortest path between the resource and the entrance of the building, or any other POI the user has chosen.

However, there were a few challenges that we had to overcome:

• The admin needs to be able to trace the path manually, and the path needs to be editable.
• Somehow the path needed to take the user to the entrance of resources, and avoid obstacles like walls
• The path needed to be able to connect multiple floors of the building through specific stairs or elevators. However, not all elevators are accessible from all floors, so I had to keep that in mind.
• The admin needed to be able to define the entrance of the building, and a connecting POI on each floor

Design Solution

I came up with a simple path tracing and editing UI, where the path would automatically connect each resource to the closest node, but with the possibility to edit connections. This avoids arbitrary paths through walls and obstacles. The entrance of each resource can also be moved easily on the same view for further accuracy.

Path tracing and editing UI

The final design also involved some additional settings only for certain types of POIs (stairs, lifts, escalators...) with a Vertical Navigation ID which would link the POI on multiple floors. This way, it's possible to create a system in which Lift A only goes to even number floors, and Lift B only goes to odd number floors for example, or any other type of complex setup common in high rise buildings.

Cosmos Design System

I followed and contributed the evolution of Cosmos, Appspace's design system, from a single component to 30+ production-ready components with full Storybook documentation. As the design team scaled from 3 to 10 designers, I architected a scalable system that maintains consistency across teams while enabling efficient collaboration between design and development.

Component Architecture & Toolkits

To prevent system bloat as we scaled, I designed a modular architecture with specialized toolkits for different product areas, allowing teams to import only necessary components for their features.

An example of the documentation page of a Cosmos component in Figma

Editor Component Rationalization

I led an initiative to consolidate fragmented editor variants that were causing maintenance issues across the development team. Through cross-functional collaboration, I identified usage patterns and established two core editor types:

• Editor Full: Comprehensive formatting tools for content authors
• Editor Lite: Streamlined version for user comments and posts (3 size variants)

This standardization reduced development complexity while maintaining design flexibility across use cases.

Template System

I developed a responsive template system with comprehensive breakpoint documentation, creating scalable page layouts that maintain consistency across device types.

Link Tiles Feature

Challenge

Multiple customers requested the ability to add links to images, seeking to replicate promotional content patterns from their previous WordPress intranets. Initial analysis revealed this specific request masked a broader need for flexible content promotion capabilities.

Strategic Solution

Rather than implementing a narrow solution, I identified Link Tiles as a more valuable alternative that addressed the underlying user need while providing broader utility across the customer base. This strategic pivot delivered greater long-term value despite higher development costs.