Widgets
Ultraleap Product - Desktop Control
Overview
How do you bring something new to the touchless desktop control space with a small team in a short amount of time. That was the challenge when I was asked to build an application to accompany the Leap Motion Controller 2 launch.
The original LMC launched with many examples of desktop control and productivity apps. This was an opportunity to give fans of those apps something new.
My solution was Widgets. A collection of bitesized applications. Quick to build thanks to reduced individual complexity. A scalable design that could grow in functionality over time. An opportunity to inject fun and novelty thanks to a low barrier to entry.
We had dozens of ideas for widgets to build, though sadly we only had time for five.
Approach
Each widget is a standalone application. This has several benefits.
You can try out a new widget safe in the knowledge it only does one thing. That makes it easy to learn. It serves as a reminder that the app is running and that your hands can trigger interactions at any time.
It also gives you a consistent way to stop the app, meaning one less thing to learn. Just close it like any app.
We built Widgets with AvaloniaUI, which enabled Windows and MacOS releases from a single code base. My team knew .Net and we had libraries of interactions from TouchFree to build from. This helped us move fast and reuse reliable code to reduce the risk of bugs.