FloorMap
Floor plans are an essential part of every workplace management solution. However, architectural floor plans are difficult to understand and contain no navigational information. FloorMap transforms them into interactive floor plans, with a space booking and wayfinding solution built on top of them.
I contributed to product discovery and design system, and designed the space booking and wayfinding solution. FloorMap invited attention from Robin, a hybrid workplace management company who acquired FloorMap in 2022.
Landscape
Workplace management software helps organisations improve the efficiency of their spaces. Floor plans offer an intuitive and glanceable visual representation of the spaces and open the door to booking, navigation, and analytics solutions.
Floor planning software is largely focused on residential or retail uses, and there was no automated way to convert floor plans from detailed and technical to clean and interactive. This left every team manually redrawing floor plans on their own.
Photo: Robin
I was part of Flow and Form, a real estate technology agency. Across multiple projects, cleaning up floor plans was a common and recurring request.
After years of manual editing, we decided to make it into a product. I was then asked to build a standardised style guide for the cleaned up, interactive floor plans.
An early example of a FloorMap.
Challenge
A major challenge was creating floor plans at scale and balancing automation with manual editing. This decision would define whether our business idea was more of a product or a service. The floor plan wouldn't be an end in itself, though.
We wanted to fill a gap in workplace tech with a floor-plan-based app. An obvious choice was in desk booking, as those solutions are typically part of huge systems — pricing out smaller offices, co-working spaces, and public institutions.
Photo: Density
As another direction, I brought up digital wayfinding. Relying on digital signage, we saw these solutions as costly, limited in capability and of questionable advantage to traditional wayfinding.
Being real estate experts, I knew we could do better, and set out to put wayfinding in every pocket — opting for a mobile app for indoor navigation instead. With our goals set, the board, after much careful consideration, named our new product FloorMap. My suggestion was Corners.
FloorMap launch promo. Photo: Flow and Form
Discovery
Two other Flow and Form designers were working on the manager-facing floor plan editor, while my focus was on the space booking and wayfinding features.
With time, and as we discovered new directions to take the product in, our collaboration grew closer to maintain a cohesive experience throughout.
The team and I aligned our two efforts on weekly syncs.
Working on Serraview Engage informed my approach to desk booking, though I challenged many of its design decisions. Floor plan interactions took on further influence from VergeSense.
My research on wayfinding evaluated conventions from Google and Apple Maps, as well as the indoor navigation app Pointr, which I thought brilliant, though retail-oriented, and with significant on-site hardware requirements.
Information architecture
The backend maintains a real-time occupancy model for each space, combining prior reservations, on-site check-ins, and WiFi data to determine which spaces are available and when. This is indicated accordingly on the floor plan.
Users are encouraged to explore the map in a free roam setting. Spaces are tapped directly or searched by name or attribute. Only after selecting a space does the user choose the appropriate action — booking or navigation.
Space booking utilises a calendar interface, tapping on the time grid to create a new event, and dragging the event block to adjust its time slot.
Once booked, the space remains indicated as booked on the map. The booking is also reflected as a new item in a separate Events tab, with a notification system for event reminders.
Wayfinding brought a challenge in precision. Digital signage gives users series of directions to memorise. These don't carry distance values, and there is no user positioning. Replicating this on phones takes away the memorising element, but remains vague. (fig. A)
The precise, Google Maps route (fig. B) raises the issue of precise indoors positioning without major onsite infrastructure. I questioned how necessary this precision was for effective navigation and landed on an easy solution. (fig. C)
Spaces and objects can be designated as landmarks for orientation, with users manually verifying their relative position as they go. This allowed for more helpful wayfinding with no additional hardware requirements.
Prototyping
I validated all ideation internally to ensure alignment with present timelines and tech limitations. As FloorMap was done entirely in-house, we also wanted to ensure its experience effectively showcased our industry expertise.
We then invited a small number of Flow and Form partners, past and present, to talk about our new product.
As new partners, we welcomed Robin, a hybrid workplace management company. Desk booking was a significant component of their platform — and so were the floor plans underneath.
Another organisation that had joined us was the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, a German private university building a new campus in Frankfurt.
We found Figma prototypes an adequate solution for validating space booking. Testing was rapid and impromptu, and done largely in-person by both us in Zagreb and Robin in Boston, MA.
Wayfinding, however, required a working app to be tested, and needed to be done in physical space. Apart from our own office, we were able to use the new Frankfurt School campus as a testing ground.
The newly finished Frankfurt School campus. Photo: MOW Architekten
Design language
We built the core design language around clarity and excellent legibility. Employing white labeling left the visual identity open-ended and customisable.
This allowed buildings to utilise FloorMap as an extension of existing signage, interior design, or brand identity.
Our
collaborations with Serraview / SpaceIQ in the past acquainted us with developing white-label products.
Planned
We found that the customer-facing mobile app and check-in data can produce useful insights on popular spaces, occupancy, no-shows, and historical trends. These could then make up a manager-facing analytics dashboard.
This dashboard would be part of the desktop app, alongside the floor plan editor and admin console.
We also planned to enable integration with third-party platforms and hardware to ensure higher data accuracy.
Photo: Butlr
Result
We launched FloorMap in late 2021, grew its team, and became map specialists in the industry. The team at Robin were so enthusiastic about FloorMap that in 2022, they acquired Flow and Form, and integrated it into their platform.
Part of the team split and formed Sawraft Studio, continuing the partnership with Frankfurt School. All this marked the end of Flow and Form. But in different ways, the culture and brand we built live on through all of us.
