Designing human connection in virtual space — owning avatar, chat and events for a 3D collaboration platform where users never felt truly present.
Manzalab builds 3D virtual spaces for events, meetings and conferences. The product existed, but users never felt truly present: generic onboarding, flat avatars, cold chat. People connected and left with no sense of experience. The core question: how do you create authentic human connection between people in a fully virtual environment?
Creating an avatar is the first emotional act of engagement. The existing flow was technical, sequential and too long — it killed momentum. I reorganised options by perception logic (face → body → outfit), enlarged tap zones, added visible disabled states, and freed navigation once the initial flow was complete.
In a virtual space, chat is the primary vector of emotional connection, not a mere communication tool. I aligned it with the map-search pattern (same auto-completion), designed conversation states (sent, read, replying), and integrated it contextually in the 3D space without breaking presence.
The events system had to create anticipation and ritual; UX bugs were breaking that continuity. I auto-deactivated past-event registrations, auto-switched to the event view on the chosen day, and aligned visual consistency across views.
Onboarding drop-off reduced by 40% after redesigning the avatar flow and navigation. Users arrived with a chosen identity, a familiar interface and direct access to social interaction — friction gave way to presence.