OASIS

client

Oasis

dates

2021 – 2022

ROLE

Product Design, Market Analysis, Wireframes, Product Management, Prototype Development

Background

Early stage startups sometimes struggle to reach product-market-fit. They really need to get out of the building and talk to users. Oasis found a novel way to mimic faces and a deep learning algorithm that filled in the missing pieces, mapped to the face. They needed to find a killer app to demonstrate the possibilities of the technology.

Learn More on: OASIS

To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study. All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Oasis.

Oasis is running the best-in-class GAN / deep learning models for synthetic video avatars, allowing video chat without ever being on camera. Instead of showing your video, you talk through an AI-generated avatar that looks like a real person and mirrors everything you do in real-time. Your avatar is you. Your avatar could also be someone else. You avatar could be a custom-designed human face generated by AI. Call it deepfake. Call it sci fi come to life. Powered by a first-of-its-kind breakthrough deep learning technology that synthesizes real-looking video of humans.

Oasis Technology in Action

01

Seeking Product-Market-Fit

Oasis found a magical moment. Early prototypes delight users with an avatar mimicking nuances of your face while you are speaking. Like a mirror that follows your every facial twitch and head nod, how your eyebrows move, and the shape of your mouthes, Oasis is a synthetic video avatar of you speaking.

02

Identify Core Product Hypotheses & Talk to Users

What is the core problem you are solving? What are the core assumptions about user behavior? What are the biggest investments in product and engineering and why? Then, taking that information, outline experiments to validate ideas. Included in this process is to identify indicators of success or failure, and define ways in which to conduct experiments.

True innovation comes from a series of small lessons. In order to find and test breakhrough concepts, we needed a way to test hypothesese about the core customer needs that would drive their business. We started with the bare minimum product sandbox to create and test ideas, to study real user behavior by observing their actions, not simply by asking questions.

03

Iterative Design & Experiementation

Using concrete actions to take to discover, test, and develop ideas that are achievable to refine over time. Very few products have that aha! moment. The one where users think the product has magic to it. So, we started from there taking users through creating their own avatar and even using another face to see what delights the user most? Is it any avatar, could they be interested in a psuedononymous version of themselves? Do they like being themselves? If we put plugins in zoom or facetime, would they use them at times when they or their surroundings weren’t camera ready? Do they like photorealistic images better than animated?Creating small tests to validate ideas and easily iterate through ideas. Continue to discover new ideas, and further understand how to deliver what users want. Repeat as necessary, moving through fildelity on your prototypes.

Design & PLANNING

Initial planning, creating requirements, analysis & design, implementation. Wireframes and user stories and defining new API features requests.

Minimum viable product

Create minimum viable product and test it in the market wtih customers and users.

Customer Feedback & Iteration

Getting customer feedback, testing, continue the cycle.

Roadmap Planning

Create a roadmap with product, design, engineering to introduce new items into the existing roadmap including user stories, design sprint planning, QA, and testing.

Concept: Pseudononymous Chat Roulette

One breakthrough concept was a pseudonymous, synthetic video chat app & social network. Your avatar is a custom-designed human face generated by AI. Like its eponymous counterpart, Chat Roulette, Oasis offered users an ephemeral experience to chat with strangers with the notable difference that no one on the platform was using their authentic selves. Instead, everyone using another avatar.

Want to try being a woman? Or a man? Or a cartoon character? Oasis allowed users to pick a new persona and test it out through pseudononymous chat. They created backstories and had fun.

Don’t like the coversation? Move on. It’s that easy!