Arc for Teams
I made a concept design that illustrates how Arc could have team features.
Behind the curtains
I made all the components myself and used screenshots from Arc.
The variables feature in Figma is a lot of fun for prototyping. I felt like I was thinking like a frontend engineer again.
Inspiration for this design
Collaboration on the web has accelerated over the last few years with more people working remotely.
Web apps have become our go-to communication and productivity tools.
Josh Miller (CEO of The Browser Company, makers of Arc) said that ‘Arc for Teams’ is a priority for Arc’s product vision and monetisation.
Josh also tweeted about recruiting research participants for Arc for Teams.
If Arc had multiplayer features, Arc could help friends, teams and employees be more collaborative and productive together.
Initial ideas
My Round 1 of designing involved pulling inspiration from how collaboration happens in other products.
Screen Sharing
What if you could contact your team right from Arc?
I drew inspiration from MSN Messenger’s feeling of presence by seeing who was online and feeling like you could reach out to them.
I added a sidebar on the right of Arc that showed your team members.
You’d be able to join a call and collaborate directly from the list of team members.
You’d be able to put your video on, chat through the audio and share your browser screen and cursor.
I also designed a potentially controversial feature – a bird’s-eye view of everyone who had opted to share their browser screen.
Of course, the feature isn’t for spying on others. The feature intends to recreate the in-person experience of seeing over each other’s shoulders, leading to serendipitous collaboration or holding yourself accountable to a focused work session.
Comments
The dream of sharing the web always includes being able to make notes on any webpage for team members to see and respond to.
“Outside of copying something into a Google Doc or into Confluence, it becomes difficult to leave those little notes or thoughts and have them readable by others. Would be particularly useful when sharing ‘thought-pieces’ with the team.”
A friend of mine who wants this feature in Arc
Additionally, this feature could be used in real-time on a call. You could brainstorm and leave comments, pulling out interesting pieces.
This feature could initially focus on the open web rather than web apps with existing comment features. Later on, perhaps this feature could evolve into a web clipper.
Widgets
I drew inspiration from widgets from iOS and MacOS. Widgets allow you to see or gain quick access to useful information.
Team widgets could dynamically keep the team on the same page, creating better alignment and speeding up the onboarding of new employees.
Team applications get busy and cluttered. Widgets allow the company to surface key information to employees in an asynchronous way daily.
Folders
Products like Google Drive and Notion use shared folders and pages to allow teams to share resources and reference common material.
Similarly, shared folders in Arc could keep project teams aligned and help new joiners get instant access to useful documents and resources.
Boosts
The existing Arc Boosts feature provides efficiencies inside the browser. Sharing Boosts across the team allows companies to operate at the level of efficiency of the most highly efficient person.
Some of these initial ideas have merit and could be further explored with a focus on the actual use cases and workflows they support.
Workflow focus
My Round 2 of designing aimed to legitimately improve people’s workflows.
Companies pay for software that improves the workflows of employees.
Step 1: Identify an existing workflow.
Step 2: Shrink the workflow or amplify the workflow’s output.The difference must be noticeable — at least 2x or 3x better.
Lenny’s Podcast — Oji Udezue (Typeform, Twitter, Calendly, Atlassian)
I chose to improve the workflow of ‘sharing your screen with your team’.
This workflow analysis could be repeated for all workflows to ensure that Arc legitimately improves how quickly and effectively teams get work done together.
My lessons
I took away 3 lessons from this project.
1 — Open brainstorming is useful but only the start
Intuition can go a long way. Sometimes you need to see something before you can know if it’s good or not. However, a refined approach, such as identifying workflows, can lead to sharp solutions to sharp problems.
2 — Prototypes allow you to feel what’s possible
A tangible prototype is the only way to know if a product feature works the way you intended. Tools like Figma continue to expand the possibilities of prototypes you can make.
3 — Product strategy is your fertile ground for ideas
Product strategy directs you to explore new features that solve specific problems. The ‘Arc for Teams’ direction inspired improvements to the Arc browser overall.